JD(S) candidate B L Sandeep lost to Shanthegowda by bagging only seven votes. Shanthegowda had bagged 23 votes in the election which was conducted by the Mysore Regional Commissioner Jayanthi at the Zilla Panchayat Hall here on Thursday.

While two members from the CPI supported Shanthegowda, BJP members remained neutral. Shanthegowda, who is the 21st president of the Zilla Panchayat, is the sixth woman to adorn the power.

Though the Zilla Panchayat has 34 elected members, only 33 were present in the hall. While member from BJP Venkatesh was absent, three other members of the same party remained neutral in the election process. Only 33 members excercised their franchise and chose Shanthegowda.

Deputy Commissioner R Narayanaswamy and Sub Divisional Officer Dayananda were present.

Confusion

The election officer asked members to lift their hands if they want to express support to Sandeep. Later, the officer asked members to lift their hands if they are opposing Sandeep. Meanwhile, members Savitha Ramesh, Belli Prakash and Radha Sundaresh questioned the procedure.

“We did not raise our hands to support Sandeep. Hence, it is clear that we do not support him. Again why should the officer ask us to lift our hands to oppose him,” members questioned.

In the meantime, Regional Commissioner Jayanthi explained the legality of asking members to lift their hands to express their opposition under Rules 3E1, 3E2 and 3E3 of the Panchayatiraj Rules. She said that if a member does not lift his hand to oppose a member, he will be considered as a neutral member.

Who voted whom?

In favour of Gayathri Shanthegowda: Savithri Ramesh, Gayathri Shanthegowda, C Radha, M M Kariappa, Shanmukha Bovi, Dhruvakumar, Bhagavan, Jyothi, Shubha N Raju, Chandramma, Girijamma, K M Kemparaju, Savithramma, Sathish, T K Manjunath, Radha Sundaresh, Sathi Sundaresh, Anthoni, Bharathi Shrinivas Gowda, K Manjula, Ravikumar, A V Gayathri and Manjula Raghumurthi. For Sandeep: Belli Prakash, Shanthaveerappa, Farahath Banu, Ashalatha D Jain, Sandeep, Thimegowda and Hoovappa.

Neutral: Ramadas, Krishnamoorthi and Shivashankar.