Mounesh Vishwakarma
Daijiworld Media Network – Bantwal (SP)

Bantwal, Jun 18: Controversy has arisen over the signing of the attendance register relating to the general session of Bantwal town municipal council held here on Monday June 17, by Mohammed Shariff, a councillor who actually remained absent throughout the duration of the meeting.

Shariff is said to have been named as an accused in a case of vandalism at Brahmarakootlu tollgate sometime back.

It is said that police are looking for Shariff, who is yet to secure bail in the said case. If a councillor remains absent from three successive general sessions, his membership gets automatically cancelled. If he attended the meeting, Shariff would have been taken into custody by the police, and if he remained absent for long, he would have attracted the provisions of getting his membership forfeited.

Several BJP councillors have alleged that Shariff had visited the municipal council after the conclusion of the meeting, and had signed the register in the presence of the municipal president.

Now, opposition members are planning to get a copy of the attendance register through an application through Right to Information Act, and then complain to the district deputy commissioner against the chief officer for tampering with the records for favouring one of the councillors.

They insist that Mohammed Shariff from the ruling party and Devadas Shetty from the opposition had remained absent during the entire period of the general session. Out of 23 councillors, only 21 had attended the session, they claimed.