Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, on Thursday, announced the formation of the new board of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and decided to retain most of the old guards in the new formation.
As expected, Firhad Hakim, who is already the state transport minister, was retained in the chair of the city Mayor and Atin Ghosh as the deputy mayor.
Initially, there were speculations that there will be two deputy mayors in the new board, one from north Kolkata and the other from south Kolkata, to bring a balance between the two poles of the city. However, bringing an end to all such speculations, chief minister announced the name of the Ghosh only for the post of deputy mayor.
The party’s Lok Sabha member, Mala Roy was once again appointed as the chairperson of the KMC. While there were no major surprises in the top three ranks of the new KMC board, there were some surprises in the list of members in the mayor-in-council and the borough chairmen.
While five names in the 13-member mayor-in-council were new faces, the focus was on appointing more women as borough chairpersons. Of the 16 borough chairpersons, nine were women, the members of the mayor-in-council are Atin Ghosh as deputy mayor, Debashish Kumar, Amiruddin Bobby, Mitali Banerjee, Deboborto Majumder, Tarak Singh, Babu Bakshi, Boisanar Banerjee , Sandipan Saha , Rampiyari Ram, Sapan Samaddar, Jiban Saha and Abhijit Mukherjee.
Also Read: Two CPI candidates in KMC election file petition in Kolkata HC, allege police, SEC failure
The 16 new borough chairpersons are Tarun Saha, Shukla Bhor, Anindya Raut, Sadhana Bose, Rehana Khatun, Shana Ahmed, Sushmita Bhattachraya, Chaitali Chatterjee, Debalina, Jui Biswas, Tarakeshwar Chakraborty, Sushata Ghosh, Ratna Shur, Sanhita Das, Ranajit Shil and Sudip Pole. While announcing the new board, the chief minister said that there will be a half-yearly review of the performance of the new board.
“The government and party will not hesitate to take action against the non- performers. I am asking all my councilors to keep eyes and ears open and work for the people,” the chief minister said. Hakim said that his first priority will be to fulfill the promises made in the party manifesto before the elections.
