With 40 out of 70 JMC seats, saffron brigade has the upper hand in mayoral election

With majority in the Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will decide the next mayor of the Pink City. The saffron party has 40 seats out of total 70 in the municipal corporation.

As the Rajasthan Municipalities Ordinance-2008 has lapsed, now the residents of the city would not elect their mayor directly. It would be the parties, the BJP and the Congress, which would decide on to field their mayoral candidates to fight in the Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC) mayor's election scheduled for March 6. The 70 councillors of the JMC would cast their vote to elect the mayor.

Kushal Singh succeeds Samant as top order of bureaucracy is shuffled

The Congress-led Rajasthan government made a politically significant top order bureaucratic reshuffle on Friday by appointing a Jat, IAS officer Kushal Singh, as the new chief secretary.

Singh is the first woman chief secretary of the state. She has replaced DC Samant, who has now been appointed chairman of the Rajasthan Electricity Regulatory Commission (RERC).

Even though she is due to retire later this year, the state government has accommodated Singh in the coveted chair superseding three IAS officers. The new secretary is due to retire on October 31.

The move comes in the wake of ongoing talks on seat-sharing for Lok Sabha with its alliance partner NCP

Even as the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are busy sorting out the issue of seat-sharing, the district unit of INC has prepared a list of its probable candidates for the general election from Baramati and Shirur, from where NCP president Sharad Pawar intends to contest.

INC's district unit president Devidas Bhansali told DNA that neither he nor the party activists wanted any alliance with NCP in the elections. "Our demand is to fight on our own," he said.

He said that the final decision on the alliance would be taken by the party high command.

Senior — and sidelined — Congress leader Govindrao Adik has come up with a formula, which political pundits may just envy for not having thought of themselves. Adik's formula suggests that NCP chief Sharad Pawar be made prime minister and Rahul Gandhi be put under his tutelage. Either Adik is asking for trouble, or he feels it will please all.

In a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, he said, "I request you to merge NCP into Congress. The responsibility of leading the government could be handed over to Pawar."

As the vote-on-account session ends, DNA sums up what transpired in the House on the last day

As the special vote-on-account session that began on February 17 came to an end on Friday, the BJP government announced five industrial incentive schemes in the state assembly under rule 44 of the House. These schemes come after nearly two months of the announcement of the new industrial policy 2009.

Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa on Friday announced the setting up of a joint legislature committee to form a draft master plan on the requirement of railway services for the state. “The Committee would submit its report within six months,” he said.

BSY added that the Committee would also prioritise pending railway projects and chalk out plans for new railway lines in various parts of the state.

The announcement was made after JD(U) leader Dr Mallanagowda Nadagowda said that there was not much being done to improve the railways.