VMC board meeting to elect mayor on May 28

Vadodara: The Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) will hold the first board meeting of the newly elected corporators on May 28.The corporators are expected to elect a new mayor and other elected wing office bearers on the same day.The mayor’s position for the next two-and-a-half-years is reserved for a corporator from a scheduled caste (SC). BJP that won 69 out of the 76 seats in the recent civic polls has five corporators elected on SC reserved seats. These include three males and two females.Those eligible for the post include Samir Vaghela from ward 12, Ajay Dabhi from ward 8, Chetan Parmar from ward 18, Meena Parmar from ward 17 and Geeta Makwana from ward 13.Sources said that the mayor’s first term of 2.5 years has a reservation of an SC candidate without any gender reservation, the second term of as many years is reserved for a woman OBC corporator. It is believed that the party will go for a male SC corporator as mayor for the first 2.5 years and have a female deputy mayor. In case it decides to break tradition and select a female candidate for the mayor’s post, it may do a balancing act by picking up male corporators as deputy mayors and standing committee chairmen for both the terms.The agenda for the meeting is expected to be brought out on May 22. Traditionally, the standing committee members are elected besides the mayor. The committee members then hold a meeting to elect one of them as the chairman.