by Mayukh Goswami (PNI)

Mangaldai : Manik @ Jivan Sil (Sarma) , the BJP ward commissioner from ward no-3 of Mangaldai town has taken charge as the twentieth chairman of Mangaldai Municipal Board on Thursday . He succeeded Pratap Bordoloi , the outgoing chairman and his BJP counterpart from ward no-10 in the elected civic body after no confidence motion was raised against Bordoloi and it was proved in the floor of the Board by the ballots on Jan 28 last when all the other nine elected ward  members including five Congress and four BJP ward commissioners  in the ten member Board voted against Bordoloi . Earlier on April 4 , 2015 the then ruling Congress formed the Board with Pratap Bordoloi as the chairman .

However after BJP came to power in the State , Bordoloi joined the ruling BJP and remained in the seat of chairman with the support from both BJP  MP of Mangaldai Loksabha and Mangaldai  Legislator being the nominated members of the civic body . Meanwhile with just over a year left for completion of the five year tenure of the body these nine members who had earlier been supporting their chairman Bordoloi surprisingly raised no confidence motion against him on December 31 last charging Bordoloi of being failure in bringing  development to the town besides downfall of the  administrative functions .

This political development of BJP ward commissioners joining hands with the opposition Congress to remove the BJP member in the chair just ahead of the ensuing  Loksabha election  put the BJP party leaders including local MP Ramen Deka , MLA Gurujyoti Das and Nilima Debi, President of BJP’s Darrang District Committee in an embarrassing situation . They tried to negotiate with the rebel party ward members but they reportedly didn’t paid any heed to their senior party leaders and remained united with the elected ward members of the opposition Congress . Now it will be interesting to see how the new chairman can take up the challenges of  bringing  development to the district head quarter town and lift the degree of the down falling administration of the Board which were the charges he had raised against his predecessor .