Aurangabad’s new mayor after court battle

AURANGABAD, May 8: Abdul Rashid Khan, better known as Rashid Mamu, was elected unopposed as Mayor of the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation a...

AURANGABAD, May 8: Abdul Rashid Khan, better known as Rashid Mamu, was elected unopposed as Mayor of the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation after a long drawn out court battle with the Shiv Sena, which ended hours before the scheduled elections today. He is the first Muslim to hold this position. Tarvinder Singh Dhillon of the Sena was elected Deputy Mayor.

Rashid Mamu, was the only Schedule Tribe Corporator in the 82 member AMC. He is elected from a ward reserved for ST candidates. The Mayoral office has been allotted to an ST candidate for this year under the reservation pattern adopted by the State Government for such posts.

The Shiv Sena, which had purposed the name of Subhash Kachwa, had contended that any corporator who is a member of the Schedule Tribe, can contest for the mayoral post, irrespective of the fact whether or not he was elected from a ward reserved for ST.

However, the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court upheld Rashid Khan’s candidature and rejected the application of Kachwa and another candidate.Rashid Mamu, who was thus the only candidate left in the fray was declared elected by the outgoing Shiv Sena Mayor Gajanan Baswal.

Rashid Mamu, 53, began his political career in the 1970’s but to date has remained an Independent, barring a few months of association with the Congress. He first gained public attention when as an autorickshaw driver in the early 70’s, he formed the autorickshaw drivers’ union. The union participated actively in the fiery broad gauge conversion agitation.Mamu, who studied up to Class II, is today a trustee of the Bhawan Homoeopathic College, and a Women’s college run by the education institute presided by Dr Rafiq Zakaria.

The election to the post of the deputy mayor was no less interesting. Dr Bhagwat Karnad of the BJP was involved in a contest with the Shiv Sena candidate. However Dr Karnad could bag only 24 of the 81 votes cast.Tarvinder Singh Dhillon, who joined the Sena soon after his election as corporator, bagged 50 votes, 11 more than the Sena strength of 39.