Both civic bodies of Jaipur to be led by women mayors

JAIPUR: Seven civic bodies including two in Jaipur will now have women mayors. In a lottery on Sunday, the mayor posts in both the civic bodies of the capital — Municipal Corporation Jaipur Heritage and Municipal Corporation Greater Jaipur — were reserved for women from Other Backward Class (OBC) category.

The lottery was held for the posts of mayors, chairpersons and presidents of civic bodies. In 1999, Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC) had reserved the seat for OBC woman and for the next five years, Nirmala Verma and Sheel Dhabhai served as mayor. After Dhabhai, Jyoti Khandelwal was elected mayor and remained in the post till 2009.

Out of the 10 municipal corporations in the state, seven have been reserved for women. While Jaipur and Jodhpur will have two women mayors after the government decided to add one more civic body in each, Udaipur , Bharatpur and Kota (South) have been left without a reserved seat for women.

The lottery was chaired by directorate of local bodies secretary Bhawani Singh. There are 196 urban bodies in the state having a total urban population of more than 1 crore. Singh said 2011 census was taken into consideration while allotting wards as per reservation.

The move has dashed the hopes of many aspirants who were eying the mayor’s post. After Jaipur was bifurcated into two corporations, many leaders were thinking of putting their names forward. Now, with the new set up, efforts to find out OBC women will pick up in the city.

UDH minister Shanti Dhariwal on Friday announced the addition of one more civic body in Kota, Jaipur and Jodhpur. Now, state authorities will again conduct delimitation to fix the boundaries of the wards. Civic polls have been postponed in Kota, Jaipur and Jodhpur for six months till the delimitation exercise is completed. A new lottery for councillors will be held by the government after the process is over.