Chandigarh MC House meeting: Development agendas take a backseat amid furore over water tariff hike
Pandemonium marked the meeting as soon as it started with AAP councillors rushing to the well of the House, demanding a debate on the water tariff hike issue
The opposition by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress against the imminent water tariff hike blocked the passage of all development-related agendas brought by the BJP-led municipal corporation in the General House meeting on Tuesday.
Pandemonium marked the meeting as soon as it started with AAP councillors rushing to the well of the House, demanding a debate on the water tariff hike issue. The Congress councillors also demanded a statement by the mayor.
In response, BJP councillors expressed exception to an AAP councillor staging protest even during the recitation of the national anthem in the last House meeting.
While the AAP councillors shouted, “shame-shame BJP” over the water tariff hike issue, the BJP councillors raised the slogan, “Insult to national anthem will not be tolerated. Maafi maango, maafi maango.”
On this, mayor Sarabjit Kaur said the House will discuss water tariff hike for half an hour before other agendas are taken up.
As discussion started, Congress councillor Gurbax Rawat alleged that the mayor had gone back on her promise in the House that there will be no increase in the water tariff.
AAP councillor Yogesh Dhingra said, “MC should fix the water leakages and stop illegal water supply outside lal dora. Reining in corruption in water supply will also help reduce costs and there will be no need to increase rates.”
The mayor responded, “The water tariff hike will not be 200% as originally notified. It will be in line with the MC resolution passed last year.”
Heated exchanges marked the subsequent arguments between the councillors.
Thereafter, when seven other agendas came up for discussion, the Congress and AAP councillors demanded voting and voted against all the agendas, leading to their rejection or deferral.
However, the House passed the resolution to request the administration to bring land pooling policy for city erstwhile villages.
BJP councillor Maheshinder Singh Sidhu said, “The opposition to development agendas has once again proved that both these parties are A and B teams of each other. All were development agendas, but they still rejected them. The ultimate sufferers will be city residents.”
In the MC elections last year, no single party got majority in the House of 35 seats.
Even though the BJP has all three posts of mayor, senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor, it is in minority with 13 councillors in the House where AAP has 14, Congress seven and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) one. On Tuesday, while the treasury benches had 13 votes, the opposition 22.