The Karur municipal council exhibited undue haste in passing a total of 48 resolutions in session lasting just 14 minutes.
The civic body in fact conducted an ordinary meeting and followed it up with an urgent meeting within that time frame. The council met here on Friday with Chairman M. Selvaraj, vice chairman R. Kaliyappan and Commissioner N. Ravichandran in attendance.
The council was called to order at 12:29 a.m. by the chair and after the customary untouchability pledge was administered to the members, Mr. Selvaraj moved a resolution thanking Chief Minister Jayalalitha for launching the medical insurance scheme. The council passed the resolution and after that the ordinary session commenced in which a total of 38 subjects were taken up. An official simply read out the resolutions numbering from 1 to 38 and never dwelled into the actual subject.
After he completed the formality, the council unanimously passed all the 38 resolutions in a trice without even a murmur leave alone a discussion on the issues listed before the council. Nobody raised a voice of opposition and it seemed every one was pretty happy at the smooth passage of all the 38 resolutions. The urgent meeting started immediately with the same official going through the grind of reading out the resolution numbers. A total of nine resolutions were adopted unanimously in the urgent meeting again without any discussion.
However Congress councillors Stephen Babu and Ravikumar complained that the municipality was maintaining the below poverty line list and that was hindering benefits from reaching their families. Also they wanted the council to pass a resolution thanking the Central government for allotting Rs.500 crore towards Thane relief.
But AIADMK councillors rejected the idea saying when the state was demanding more, the Centre had granted only a pittance. There was nothing in the Centre's grant that could be appreciated, they contended.
At 12:43 p.m. Mr. Selvaraj wound up the meeting for the day, with the satisfaction of having accomplished the Herculean task of having passed a total of 48 resolutions in 14 minutes.
Of the total 48 seats in the council the DMDK has 5, Congress 4, MDMK 3 and the DMK 1. There is an independent as well. The rest all belong to the AIADMK. After the meeting was adjourned Mr. Selvaraj greeted every one around from the dais for “Thai 1which the Chief Minister has announced as the Tamil New Year day.” An AIADMK councillor rushed and murmured in Mr. Selvaraj's ears that it is only Pongal festival and not Tamil New Year day which the AIADMK has reverted to Chithirai 1.
