President Meenakshi walks out from meeting
Pics: Umesh Marpalli
Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi (HB)
Udupi, Aug 31: Chaos erupted in City Municipality Council (CMC) meeting here on Thursday, August 31 as the opposition BJP members disrupted the proceedings.
The meeting had begun at 10.30 am. Before reading the agenda, CMC president Meenakshi Madhav Bannanje said she wanted to speak for five minutes. But the BJP members did not allow her to speak. They started shouting indiscriminately. During that time Meenakshi read out the agenda amid noise and objections. As soon as she finished, BJP members raised the street light issue. But due to noise, nothing could be heard properly.
BJP members also raised the pandal issue in between the chaos. They demanded why the pandal was removed illegally. CMC on Wednesday had forcibly removed a 'pandal' set up by the BJP as its venue to hold a protest over sand mining. Divakar Shetty Herga and Yashpal Suvarna from BJP indulged more in arguments during the chaos.
Meenakshi Madhav Bannanje walked out from the meeting at around 11pm as she could not conduct the meeting peacefully.
Commissioner and vice president Sandhya Thilakraj are proceeding with the meeting. But the chaos has not ended. It is claimed that BJP district president had instructed BJP councilors to raise the pandal issue in the CMC meeting today.
Udupi gets Open-defecation free district award
Speaking to media persons, president of CMC Meenakshi said, “Udupi has been declared open-defection district free and has been awarded consecutively second time this year. Besides, our district will be declared as sodium light free city soon.”
“I was prevented by opposition party councillors to announce the news. The BJP councillors Yashpal Suvarna and Mahesh Takoor snatched the mike and information file from my hands.”
“I told them to sit politely to discuses the agenda but they did not agree. So I randomly passed the agenda during the meeting. They are jealous with the Congress developmental works. Until the agenda get passed, no work would start in the city. We would like to work for people and they do not have concern for public. They always want to put hindrance in meetings.”
Regarding the street lights, she said, “The total number of street lights is 15,938 in city. CMC has changed 1144 sodium bulbs to LED lights. A tender was called for 400 lights.”
“With the installion of LED lights, CMC would save nine lac unit of electricity annually. It means that they will save Rs 53.21 lac every year. At the end of November, we will replace all sodium lights to LED lights. With that Udupi will become sodium light free city in just few months.”
Regarding the removal of pandal set by BJP for protest, Manjunathayya said, “We removed the pandal as per the instruction given by SP Sanjiv Patil. CMC had not given permission to set up pandal.”
“We had given permission for protest from 4.30 pm to 5.30 pm. Moreover, the temporary pandal would have created heavy traffic in area and disturb vehicles transport. Further, it was near school zone and in heavy rainfall, it would have fallen. So we removed it.”
Deputy commissioner instructed, “If any organization holds protest against sand mining, they should use protest deck as Manipal. CMC should not allow them to conduct protest for such reasons in city.”
“I won’t apologize to anybody, unless it is my mistake. I followed the instruction of SP. Social justice is equal to everyone. I am not an agent of any political party. I am a representative of government,” he said.
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