Mayor, 8 other councillors face disqualification in Nagpur

Nagpur, Jun 16 (UNI) A Mayor and eight other members of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), from the ruling as well as opposition parties, face disqualification after the caste scrutiny committee rejected their claim of Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.

This is the first time in the history of the NMC that a sitting mayor faces disqualification on account of his caste certificate being found invalid.

The members whose claim has been rejected are Mayor Devrao Umredkar, Sanjay Pimprikar, Pushpa Pathrabe, Sharad Bhanarkar, Vilas Parate, all from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Parshuram Bokade, Bhimrao Nandanwar, Bhaskar Burde (all Shiv Sena) and Jaymala Barapatre (Congress). All of them belong to the Halba community, which they claimed is a scheduled tribe.

NMC sources said notices of disqualification would now be served on all the nine members.

Mr Umredkar was elected Mayor after the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance swept to power in the civic elections last February.

The nine councillors had filed their nominations from wards reserved for ST candidates and had submitted certificates accordingly.

Candidates getting elected from ST wards have to obtain validity certificates from the scrutiny committee within a stipulated period of time, failing which they face disqualification.

UNI