On May 8, the 32 ward councillors of Hazaribagh Municipal Council will choose a vice chairman among themselves. As per State election commission’s instruction from 10 am oath ceremony of newly elected chairman and ward councilors will start and from 12 noon process of election of vice chairman will start with the filing of nomination papers.
The race for the chair of vice chairman has actually started just after the announcement of results of civic polls 2013 on 11th April 2013. Dinner and breakfast diplomacy began on 13th April when outgoing vice president Manish Jaiswal invited the newly elected councilors on breakfast. After that MlA Saurav Narayan Singh organised a welcome ceremony cum dinner for the councilors.
After the breakfast and dinner, diplomacy meetings names of some councilors came in market as the contender of the post. Anjay Paswan, Sumitra Devi and Neelima Anand were said to be the front runners that time. Till Ramnavmi the BJP camp was in wait and watch position and no name from their camp came into talks. Among the newly elected councilors atleast 7-9 are active BJP workers so everyone was eagerly waiting their candidate.
After appointment of Tunnu Gope as District BJP President, discussions and meetings started at Atal Bhawan where gradually the number of visiting councilors started rising up.
Though the BJP has yet not announced any name for the post but now everyone in town knows that Kameshwar Gope alias Kamal Gope is party’s candidate.
After entry of Kamal Gope in the fray the scene started changing very fast. From Congress and RJD camp now the name of Anand Dev is on top for the post of vice chairman. As per talks Neelima Anand and Sumitra Devi are now not going to fight the election. In the meantime AJSU leader Manjeet Yadav declared the candidature of his wife Sunita Devi for the post.
So when it is less than 48 hours left for announcement of the name of vice chairman of Hazaribagh Municipal Council, it seems that finally four candidates will be in the battlefield. Kameshwar alias Kamal Gope, having support of BJP, Anand Dev, having support of Congress and RJD, Anjay Paswan, with the support of JVM and Sunita Devi having support of AJSU.
In the present scenario and political connections of newly elected ward councilors it can be said that Kamal Gope is the front runner for the post till today but it is very hard to speculate the final result because every type of political tricks are yet going on here and it will go till the noon of 8th May.
Talks of use of money in this election are also hot in the town. Initially it was in talks that a candidate has promised to give Rs3 lakhs and a trip to Singapore to the councilors but now it is Rs1 lakh and trip to Singapore or Rs1.5 lakhs. The truth of this talk can be established only after the election and abroad visit of some councilors.