A New Mayor elected in GVMC?

YSR Congress Party Corporator of 11th ward in Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation, Golagani Hari Venkata Kumari was elected as the new Mayor of Visakhapatnam here on Thursday.

Senior corporator Jiyyani Sridhar from Ward 52, is the new Deputy Mayor.

Hari Venkata Kumari is the second woman Mayor of Visakhapatnam. In the past, Rajani Ramani of Congress became the first woman elected to the mayoral post.

The YSRCP did not announce the mayoral candidate till the last minute.

Many expected that city president Vamsi Krishna Srinivas Yadav from Ward 21 would be chosen for the post reserved for BC-General.

However, the party wanted an educated woman candidate from the weaker sections and zeroed-in on Venkata Kumari, a trained graduate teacher who recorded the biggest margin of 4850 votes to emerge victorious in the Arilova area.

Kumari and Sridhar as well as all the corporators were sworn in at the GVMC council hall and the ceremony was attended by Rajya Sabha member V Vijayasai Reddy, MPs MVV Satyanarayana (Visakhapatnam), and BV Satyavathi (Anakapalle), Tourism Minister Muttamsetti Srinivasa Rao, and GVMC Commissioner S Nagalakshmi.

Interacting with the media later, Kumari promised to work for the development of Visakhapatnam, particularly industrialisation.

In the March 10 elections to the GVMC, YSRCP was victorious in 58 wards of the total 98 wards. The Telugu Desam Party bagged 30 seats while the Jana Sena Party won three and the BJP one.

Earlier in the morning, the YSRCP took a victory rally led by Vijay Sai Reddy from the Central Park to the GVMC office, a distance of about 250 metres.