Amid political tug-of-war, Kollam Mayor Prasanna Earnest resigns

KOLLAM: Abiding with the agreement in LDF, though lately, Prasanna Earnst resigned from the post of Mayor of Kollam Corporation. CPI will now hold the post of mayor until the end of the term of the current governing body.

According to the agreement in the LDF, CPM will have the Mayor post for four years and CPI the remaining one year. CPM will assume the office of the deputy mayor for the final year. According to this, CPM should have handed over the mayor post to the CPI last December. CPI's deputy mayor and two permanent committee chairpersons resigned last week in protest over CPM not agreeing to the earlier promised terms.

According to norms, when a mayor resigns, the deputy mayor takes up the post until a new mayor is elected. This time, since the Deputy Mayor resigned earlier, the Mayor and Deputy Mayor elections will be held together in two weeks. The CPM explained that the mayor's resignation was extended to inaugurate some projects that had reached the final stage.