Intermittent political wrangles between members of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam marred the proceedings of the Corporation Council on Friday.
The council meeting witnessed heated exchanges between councillors of the two parties at least twice, taking up substantial time of the house and limiting discussions on the subjects listed on the agenda.
The first incident took place after the AIADMK councillor J. Srinivasan thanked Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for sanctioning funds to the Corporation under the Integrated Urban Development Mission for strengthening civic infrastructure in the newly added wards in the city and went on to claim that Corporation has taken up more number of works over the past 15 months than what was executed during the previous five years. He also claimed that works worth Rs.1.75 crore has been taken up in each ward.
This brought the DMK members to their feet with a section of them claiming that their wards were being neglected. M. Anbazhagan, DMK floor leader and former deputy mayor, pointed out that several wards lacked civic amenities and wondered what had happened to the proposed move to get the city included under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Mission.
He challenged Mr. Srinivasan to prove that works to the tune of Rs.1.75 crore has been taken up in the wards and if it was true he was prepared to resign his post. Wards represented by the Opposition councillors were being neglected in allocation of funds; he alleged and urged the Mayor A.Jaya to ensure that funds were allotted without any bias.
His remarks were vociferously countered by the AIADMK benches with Bhaskar of the AIADMK retorting that the present dispensation was only following the way shown during the DMK regime. Ms.Jaya maintained that funds were allotted without any discrimination and works were being taken up based on priority and availability of funds.
Later, G. Sathyamurthy of the DMK provoked another bout of verbal clashes when he suggested that the council make a recommendation to the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation to provide uninterrupted power supply to the city residents to enable them to use free household appliances given by the government.
Taking strong objection to this, the AIADMK members criticised the DMK for failing to get more power from the Central pool despite being part of the Union government. Order was restored after about 15 minutes of unruly scenes.
