Indian Express 30.12.2009
Year’s last Mohali MC meet ends on stormy note
Minority ruling group walks out as majority opposition opts ‘pick & choose’ policy
As the rival councillors created unruly scenes without bothering to conduct official business, the Congress-led ruling group walked out of the year’s last general House meeting of the Mohali Municipal Council (MC), which ended on a stormy note, at Municipal Bhawan in Sector 68 here today.
With the support of 11 of the total present 28 councillors, the ruling group was virtually turned into minority and has to walk out as the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) backed opposition group opted for “pick-and-choose” policy to approve the agenda items favouring their group councillors while rejecting the agenda items pertaining to the constituencies represented by the opposition group.
Getting boost with the entry of former MC president Kulwant Singh, who was attending his first MC meeting in the present House, the opposition group took on the ruling group by alleging major scam in the expenditure of several crores of rupees on certain development works.
As the MC president, Rajinder Singh Rana addressed MC senior vice-president Harman Preet Singh Prince, who raised the issue, without extending least courtesy, Prince asked Rana to mend his tongue but instead local Congress MLA Balbir Sidhu, who as an ex-officio member was present, called another opposition councilor Rajinder Prasad Sharma in same manner, leading to open use of unparliamentary words between ruling and opposition councilors.
The political allegations and counter-allegations soon turned personal, bringing a group of opposition councillors coming close to blows with MLA and his supporter councillors, especially former MC senior vice-president Rishav Jain, but councillor Gurmeet Singh Walia averted the situation from reaching flashpoint.
Councillor Paramjeet Singh Kahlon raised issue of encroachments on municipal land (highlighted by Chandigarh Newsline recently) and alleged widespread corruption. Refuting the charges, Rana asked Kahlon to furnish evidence or he would drag him to court.
As councillors Rishav Jain and Mohanbeer Singh Shergill shielded the ruling group while Kulwant Singh and B B Maini insisted for independent probe into serious allegations of scam and corruption, the entire House resembled fish market with the majority councilors getting up their seats and shouting at each other without caring for their language, tone and tenor.
After the uproar calmed down, councillor Kuljit Singh Bedi strongly opposed the proposal of two-year extension to private firm for enabling it to deploy security guards at recently installed security gates in the city, and sought security guards on present terms and conditions otherwise cancellation of contract and recovering the revenue earned by private firm from advertisement rights on gates, which have turned defunct without guards. Kulwant objected to the design of gates and sought to modify it as per plans of MC.Another agenda item of premix carpeting of parking lot in Phase X market on High Court’s direction also raised storm as Sharma sought to keep it pending till the condition of all parking lots was not assessed and estimates of all in need of repair prepared. But as area councilor Walia threatened contempt of court proceedings, Kulwant pacified opposition councilors to get the agenda passed unanimously with provision to recarpet all parking lots in bad condition.
On the last agenda item of development works worth over Rs 6 crore, the opposition councilors approved works of their own wards and rejected those of ruling group, which walked out while terming it “discrimination and illegal”.
