JOIN USRuckus marks MCC meeting
Pandemonium was witnessed at the Mysore City Corporation (MCC) council meeting here on Thursday, as the aggrieved corporators created a ruckus over a trivial issue prompting mayor M C Rajeshwari to walk out deferring the meeting for sometime.
Congress corporator P Devaraj alleged that the chairmen of the standing committees are acting according to their whims and fancies. The officers are taking files home, delaying the official works. Opposition leader M V Ramprasad demanded the mayor to disclose the names of the officers who are carrying home the official files, a grave misconduct. This was followed by the heated exchange of words from a section of the corporators irrespective of parties.
A section of corporators led by Ramprasad trooped into the well of the house and demanded the mayor to come out with the names. When the repeated appeals didn’t cut ice with the corporators, mayor staged a walk out amid the slogans raised against her. The BJP corporators who preferred to keep the tempo, staged a dharna in front of the mayor’s chamber. Later, they tried to buy peace with the mayor in her antechamber. They were also joined by some among Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) corporators.
The mayor who was in tears, fired a salvo, but in broken voice asking Ramprasad led group of BJP corporators, why they kept mum when another corporator H S Nandish Preetham was taking the files home? “I have sent many files to the commissioner, but yet to get it back”, alleged the mayor. Incidentally, a pile of files was found on mayor’s table at that time.
Resumed
Later, when the meeting resumed, commissioner M R Ravi clarified that the mayor is entitled to keep the file for 15 days according to the rules. In case of keeping the files even after the prescribed period, action can be initiated within the ambit of law. The mayor can also make notes on the files pertaining to the council, while she is not entitled to do so in the case of administrative files. The mayor can send a separate note to the commissioner in case of any opinions regarding the administrative decisions.
How many apartments?
The very question triggered noisy scenes in the council thus marring the proceedings. Sunanda Phalanetra a BJP corporator representing ward 15 in the city corporation had submitted a questionnaire to the council section seeking information on the number of apartments, revenue generated and their limits among other questions. What had angered Sunanda Phalanetra was the reply, which according to her was unscientific.
She was sceptical on the number of apartments as 154, given in the reply. She found support in Janata Dal (Secular) corporator Satish (Sandesh Swamy) who alleged that there could be nearly 2,000 apartments, with 500 still in planning stages. More than that, quoting another answer pertaining to violation at the time of constructing apartments, the corporators wanted to know the exact number of cases where the violators coughed up double amount.