The tough time that the BJP faced in picking the mayor and deputy mayor continued even with choosing members and chairmen for the BBMP’s 12 standing committees on Thursday. Following a day of high political drama where legislators and BBMP members failed to arrive at a consensus, the election has been put off to Friday. The legislators literally fought and are alleged to have hurled abuses at each other during the meeting at the BBMP headquarters. They haggled with the selection committee comprising city in-charge minister R. Ashok, Jayanagar MLA B. N. Vijayakumar, BJP city president Subbanna and BJP district president Sachidananda, to get plum posts for their supporters.
Though the BJP had finalised the list of members and chairmen for the respective panels, a few legislators wanted to bag ‘plum’ panels for their constituency ahead of the assembly elections. MLAs from Mahadevapura (Aravind Limbavali), Bommanahalli(Satish Reddy), Yelahanka (S. R. Vishwanath), K.R. Puram (N. S. Nandish Reddy) and R.R. Nagar (M. Srinivas) fought in favour of their supporters. But Mr Srinivas went a step ahead and was almost successful in getting his corporator-son S. Venkatesh Babu (Kottigepalya corporator) the chairmanship of the BBMP committee on public health, said sources.
Minister R. Ashok looked helpless. An upset Mr Ashok was found venting his anger on the corporators and walking up and down the corridor trying to bring peace among the warring legislators and corporators.
The list of probables went haywire after Mr Srinivas sneaked in his son’s. All the other MLAs starting making their own demands and the meeting remained inconclusive. Later, the drama shifted to Mr Ashok’s residence, added sources.