PALAKKAD: Chaotic scenes and violent scuffles between members marred the council meeting of the Ottappalam Municipality, called for passing the budget, on Tuesday. Three councillors, including chairperson Rani Jose of the Congress, T Latha and P Sashidharan of the CPM, were injured in the ruckus.The Ottapalam Block Congress Committee has called for a 12-hour hartal in the municipal area on Wednesday to protest against the attack on their chairperson, said committee president Sathyan Perambrakode.While Rani Jose has been admitted to a private hospital, Latha and Sashidharan have been admitted to the Ottappalam Taluk hospital. In the 36-member Ottappalam municipality, the UDF and the LDF have 16 members each, while the BJP has four councillors. When the council met on Tuesday to pass the budget, three Congress rebel councillors- Selvan, Babu and Ammini - made themselves unavailable, thus reducing the UDF majority to just two. A CPM councillor, Geetha Haridas, has also failed to turn up. The BJP had issued a whip to its four councillors to vote against the budget. The UDF, in effect, was short of a majority in the council to pass the budget.The budget was initially presented before the council on last Saturday, and on that occasion too, the three Congress councillors had stayed away, leaving the UDF short of the required majority. At that time, the CPM councillors had reportedly agreed to co-operate to get the budget passed on Tuesday, provided the amendments proposed by the them were incorporated into it.This, however, did not materialise as the CPM councillors did not attend the meeting of the finance standing committee to propose the amendments, nor did they forward a written version of the same. On Tuesday, the Party changed its stance, and the CPM councillors stated that the UDF had no legal or moral right to present a budget after losing its majority.However, Chairperson Rani Jose announced that the budget had been passed with the amendments, and then proceeded to leave the chamber, and the act left the opposition fuming. The CPM women councillors blocked Rani Jose, stating that the UDF did not have a majority. “The CPM has decided to conduct a march to the Ottappalam Municipality on Wednesday to protest the attempt to pass the budget without the required majority,” said P Sreekumaran, the leader of the LDF block in the council.
Comments
0 comment