Women steal the Corporation show in Howrah

Mayor, Deputy mayor and the Chairperson all woman bridge
Howrah, 8 December : Women emerged as natural choice for the top civic posts in Howrah creating a precedence. The new mayor of the Howrah Municipal Corporation is a woman, so is the deputy mayor and the chairperson.
Despite rumours that the top civic post will go to Samir Saha an experienced councillor and leader of the municipal employees' association the Left Front could not just ignore the public mandate that voted 30 women to the 50-seat civic body. Mamata Jaiswal is Howrah's new mayor.
Jaiswal has established her identity as a capable administrator on her own. Unlike many of her councillor colleagues, she doesn't bask in the reflected glory of her husband. She has been a councillor and member of the mayor-in-council (MiC) since 1989, and has managed to work up to this position despite controversy over her selection. That the Left Front meeting took quite a few hours to select the mayor and other office-bearers is indication enough that the choice was not at all easy. CPM district secretary Sridip Bhattacharya's wife Swapna has been selected the chairperson of the corporation. The Big Brother CPM has left the deputy mayor's post for the CPI, which has nominated Kaveri Moitra to the post.
Jaiswal and other winning councillors will take oath on 12 December. They include Basanti Majumdar, late CPM leader Chittabrata Majumdar's relative, CPM MP Swadesh Chakrabarty's daughter Sampurna Chakrabarty, party state secretariat member Dipak Dasgupta's wife Aditi Dasgupta, CPM district secretary Sridip Bhattacharya's wife Swapna Bhattacharya and CPM legislator Lagan Deo Singh's wife Meena Singh.
According to CPM insiders, Mamata Jaiswal is not a confidante of the party's Howrah district secretary. In fact, she is close to Swadesh Chakrabarty, who leads the other faction in the Howrah CPM. But Samir Saha is close to Sridip Bhattacharya. But he lost to Jaiswal in the final round of discussions in the party meeting. That explains why Bhattacharya's wife was given the chairperson's post. Jaiswal, however, has a difficult road ahead. Apart from managing the civic problems in this centuries-old city, she will have to tackle the controversy over her role in her home turf. In the past few years, she had taken a lot of controversial decisions as an MMiC. She will also have to manage her political bosses, who will try to control the civic works from behind.