Date:06/02/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/02/06/stories/2007020616840100.htm

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Vijayawada Mayor manhandled

Staff Reporter

Ugly scene at VMC meeting over impasse on water meter issue

Mayor Mallika Begum

VIJAYAWADA: A general body meeting of the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) on Monday witnessed ugly scenes, with corporators of the Telugu Desam Party and the Left parties manhandling Mayor Mallika Begum, following which she broke down.

When the Mayor was trying to leave the council hall after adjourning the meeting for lunch to break the impasse over the contentious issue of fixing water meters the unprecedented incident occurred. Trouble began when corporators of the TDP, the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the CPI (Marxist) squatted around the Mayor's podium and insisted that she make a statement on the issue before leaving the hall.

Corporators of the ruling Congress and the three opposition parties jostled with one another and, in the melee that resulted, Ms. Begum was shoved and mildly roughed up. Deputy Mayor Anne Prasanna assailed TDP floor leader Y. Ramana and corporator P. Nageswara Rao physically and verbally while Congress corporator Y. Chalapati Rao broke open a mike and flung it across. Senior Congress corporator S. Narasaraju quietly escorted Ms. Begum out of the meeting hall while Congress corporators kept their opposition counterparts engaged in a verbal duel.

Apology sought

Addressing the media later, the Mayor said that she was "thoroughly disturbed" with the "atrocious behaviour" of the opposition corporators. The Mayor, along with her party corporators, squatted at the Mahatma Gandhi statue in front of the VMC office and staged a dharna to register her protest. She asserted that the meeting would not continue until the opposition corporators tendered an apology. Lagadapati Rajagopal, MP, demanded an apology by the State leaders of the TDP and the Left parties for their behaviour with "a woman mayor who is from the minorities" while local leaders of the TDP, CPI and CPI (M), in a joint statement, said that the Congress was only trying to divert people's attention from the "burning issue" of water meters. Inviting the Congress leaders to examine the video footage of the incident, they said if they were at fault they were ready to apologise.