Monday, December 19 2005 18:18 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Palakkad: In a deft political move to stall the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from grabbing proxy power in the politically fractious Palakkad municipal council, a Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) nominee was today (Dec 19, 2005) elected as Chairman with UDF support, but resigned immediately, stating that he was not interested in holding the post with the backing of the UDF.

Giving an anti-climactic touch to the two-month long crisis in the council, CPI-M's K A Chandrankutty declined to be sworn in after defeating BJP-backed Muslim League rebel P M Vijayakumar by 29-18 votes in the election, held as directed by the High Court.

Making it clear that the BJP, which was the single largest bloc in the council with 17 seats, would not be given any comfort, the UDF leadership in the morning decided to back the LDF.

This was the third time that an attempt to elect a Chairman for the council proved futile as the political players declined to arriving at a consensus.

Though the BJP had emerged the single largest party in the 50-member council, it could not put up a candidate for the Chairperson post, as that party did not have a Scheduled Caste councillor in the civic body, where the top post was reserved.

However, BJP's S R Balasubramaniam was elected Vice Chairperson in the first meeting itself. But the Government invalidated the election, holding that as per Municipal rules, the vice-chairperson had to be sworn in by the Chairperson.