Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai   

They ignore crucial civic issues again

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI NOV. 28. It was a marathon eight-and-half hour long Corporation Council meeting on Thursday, but the top issue for the council members was hardly the devastation of the city infrastructure due to the North East Monsoon rain.

Thursday's meet was full of expunged remarks, exchanges between the benches, sharp political sparring, slogan raising and even the occasional eviction using watch and ward staff.

On Thursday, three councillors, M.Subramaniam of DMK, B.Devaki of CPI and M.Gomathi of CPI (M) found themselves forced out of the council hall for protests.

The walk out of the day was performed by the DMK, at the fag end of the meeting amidst cheering by the ruling AIADMK.

The women councillors of the ruling party were responsible for much of the slogan raising and even occasional hooting, as they showed scant regard to the words of the Deputy Mayor and their ruling party leader.

On more occasions than one, `Karate' R.Thiagarajan gave elaborate replies to the allegations raised by the DMK councillors, recalling the `misdemeanours' of the previous regime and fixing responsibility for the ills with the former Mayor, M.K.Stalin.

This despite several protests from the DMK members that Mr.Thiagarajan was there "only to conduct the council" and the right of reply rested with the ruling party leader. The DMK members, C.V.Malayan and P.V.Kalyanasundaram even requested Mr.Thiagarajan to take a seat in the treasury benches if he wanted to debate.

Perhaps, the only time when the council stood united was over a subject seeking sanction of Rs 4.27 crore for the Mayoral elections. Cutting across party lines, councillors agreed that at present the image of the civic agency had "taken a beating" and this was not the right time for elections. The Congress leader, R. Mano said the council could appeal to the State Election Commission to postpone the polls by six months.

But such moments were rare. So too were the arguments and debates over public infrastructure. Instead, much of the meeting, was consumed on foreign origins of the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, TMC founder-president G.K.Moopanar's views on the Corporation functioning under Mr.Stalin, counter allegations of corruption between the DMK and the AIADMK and several recaps from the previous council meetings.

In all, 37 resolutions were passed and two were deferred. The question hour and zero hour alone extended to over six hours.

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