MMC Chairperson Dayanand Deulkar leaves office today
No consensus on next municipal chief
City fathers not endorsing Congress sympathisers
TEAM HERALD
MARGAO: Margao Municipal Chairperson Dayanand Deulkar will be finally out of office from Friday, but the City Fathers are yet to arrive at a consensus to choose his successor.
Deulkar said there’s no question of withdrawing his resignation, adding that it is now left for the ruling group to forge a consensus and name his successor.
When the then 14-member ruling group had cleared Deulkar’s name for the coveted post seven-and-half-months ago, former Chairperson Arthur D’Silva had told the media that Councillor Sadanand Naik would succeed Deulkar after the six months tenure.
However, the last seven months and the intervening Lok Sabha poll has only created doubts and confusion in the civic body. It would not be out of place to mention here that the ruling group headed by former Chairperson Arthur D’Silva, had extended their support to the South Goa Lok Sabha BJP candidate, Narendra Sawaikar, in the presence of Chief Minister, Manohar Parrikar on the eve of the poll.
However, the husband-wife duo Councillors of Sadanand and Babita Naik were conspicuous by their absence from the ruling group at the media conference. In fact, some of the ruling councillors in private say that Sadanand’s absence at the media briefing might go against him, even as a section of the councillors are not averse in supporting Avinash Shirodkar for the top post.
This section of the ruling councillors are in favour of electing a chairperson who is not perceived as a Congress sympathiser or supporter so that he or she does not come in the way of development assistance from the government.
When contacted, Deulkar said that the ruling group would soon meet to choose his successor, but hastened to add that those who are eyeing the top post should take the initiative to call a meeting of the group at the earliest.
