Anand civic body president's re-poll on Nov 6

Anand, Oct 26 (UNI) Anand municipal president's re-poll that got entangled in a legal mess, will now be held on November 6, as per a notification issued by the district collector RR Varsani here this morning.

The poll, which, will be held at 1100 hrs on Monday would be an all-BJP affair as Anand Vikas Manch (AVM), which opposed the BJP in the last year poll, is now part of the same party.

The re-election to the post of president to the Anand Municipality had become inevitable following a Supreme Court order on September 11, 2006. The apex court had granted two months time to district administration for conducting the re-poll.

During the municipal elections of November 8, 2005 the posts of president and vice-president were fiercely contested between the BJP and the Anand Vikas Manch (AVM). On the day of voting four BJP corporators had failed to turn up. And the AVM alleged that two of its corporators (including a lady corporator) were whisked away by the police when they were about to enter the voting booth to an unknown destination.

Following these incidents, the results later showed both the BJP and AVM being locked at 19 votes each. To end the impasse, the returning officer used an interesting system of lottery by tossing up four sealed covers containing four names and asked a peon to lift two of the covers which led him to declare Mr Jairaj Patel of the BJP as president and MG Gujarati of AVM as vice president.

The AVM charged that the BJP with the help of police had kidnapped two of their members and said had their two members been allowed to vote, the presidentship would have come to it as it would have had 21 votes.

Mr Vijay Patel of AVM aproached the Gujarat High Court against the election of Mr Jairaj Patel and also submitted a video recording of the election proceedings to the court which showed the two AVM members being whisked away by the police.

After scrutinising the video tapes the High Court on February 27, 2006 ordered that Vijay Patel be made the president during the interim period. Immediately, the next day Jairaj Patel approached the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court on March 23, 2006 in its order said the current vice-president MG Gujarati would be acting as president until the case was finally disposed off.

However, the situation took a piquant turn when Vijay Patel and all other members of the AVM joined the BJP on April 5, 2006.

After large scale defection of AVM members, the election to the post of president is a foregone conclusion with the BJP having 39 members and the remaining being three independents. However, there is a sharp polarisation in the BJP ranks with original Jayraj Patel faction strongly resenting Vijay Patel's and his AVM group coming into the BJP fold.

UNI RP/VNB sb ht2100