Jaipur: Hopefuls wait for mayor Ashok Lahoti to step down

Jaipur is expected to get a new mayor by January next year. After being elected as MLA, mayor Ashok Lahoti is expected to resign from his post this week. After his resignation, the process for the election of new mayor will start and the city will get third mayor for the first time in a single tenure of five years.

Lahoti should resign within 14 days from the post of mayor after being elected as an MLA according to the provisions of the Rajasthan Municipality Act 2009. Lahoti was elected MLA on December 11 and therefore, he will have to resign by December 24 as per the Act. Lahoti has not yet resigned from the post and according to sources, he is still waiting for directions from BJP organisation. “The party has not given me any instructions so far. When the party will ask me to resign from the post of Mayor, I will resign immediately,” Lahoti told DNA.

According to sources, BJP councilors are pressurising the organisation over mayor’s resignation. Last week some councillors even met party’s city unit president Sanjay Jain and senior leaders on this issue. Former chief minister Vasundhara Raje has also directed Lahoti to resign. According to sources, Lahoti had met Raje after being elected as MLA and she had instructed him to quit the post of mayor.

Sources say that Lahoti can resign from the mayor’s post in the next two or three days. There is a long line of candidates in BJP who are aspiring to be the mayor of Jaipur. A dozen of BJP councillors are eyeing mayor’s chair and a group of BJP councillors are lobbying to make an OBC (Other Backward Class) candidate as a mayor but the post is reserved for the general (male) category.

After Lahoti became MLA, BJP may make any Vaishya or Brahmin councillor as the candidate for the post of Mayor. The names of deputy mayor Manoj Bhardwaj, former chairman of the licensing committee Vishnu Lata, chairperson of the compounding committee Rakhi Rathore, finance committee chairman Satyanarayan Dhamani and former mayor Nirmal Nahata are doing the rounds for the next mayor.

If Bharadwaj or Lata is declared the candidate then the post of deputy mayor will be given to any Rajput or Vaishya candidate. When looking at the previous history of the Jaipur Municipal Corporation, the BJP has promoted the deputy mayor as a mayor. Thus Bharadwaj is the strongest claimant if we consider the history.

In the Jaipur Municipal elections 2014, the BJP had made Nirmal Nahata of the Jain community as the mayor of Jaipur while Manoj Bharadwaj became deputy mayor. Bharadwaj represents the Brahmin community. Two years later Ashok Lahoti replaced Nahata as mayor. Lahoti hails from the Vaishya community and the BJP retained the equation of Vaishya-Brahmin for the post of mayor and deputy mayor.

RESIGNATION AWAITED

After being elected as MLA, mayor Ashok Lahoti is expected to resign from his post this week. After his resignation, the process for the election of new mayor will start and the city will get third mayor for the first time in a single tenure of five years.