Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai   

When officials hold sway

By Our Staff Reporter

Chennai Feb. 1. Elected representatives of urban local bodies directing their questions to Chairman to get a convincing reply is the common practice. And only when the Chairman is unable to reply convincingly, does he seek for counsel from officials. But during a monthly meeting of an urban local body on the southern fringes of the city, officials had an upper hand while responding to queries from councillors.

At a meeting of the Maraimalai Nagar town panchayat on Friday, officials held sway and right from the beginning of the meeting, a couple of officials were in total control of the proceedings--reading out the subjects in the agenda, replying to councillors' questions and even clarifying the doubts raised by the members.

While it was a common practice for elected representatives of urban local bodies to direct their questions to the Chairman with the words, "thalaivar avargaley", ward members in this town panchayat began their questions with the prefix "sir".

With the Chairman, M.G.K. Gopikannan of the AIADMK finding himself in a spot and unable to part with information, it was left to the head clerk and sanitary health inspector to reply to questions of ward members. Be it delay in execution of road repair works or accumulation of silt in sumps or choked manholes, the officials only had the reply.

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