Mayhem at Tirunelveli Corporation council meet; DMK councillors stage walk-out, agendas adjourned again

Councillors engaged in heated arguments in the council meeting at Tirunelveli corporation on Friday. | Photo Credit: A. SHAIKMOHIDEEN

The ongoing tussle between Mayor P.M. Saravanan and a large chunk of ruling DMK councillors over sharing the “benefits” of being councillors, spilled over to the Corporation council meeting held here on Friday. The meeting had to be adjourned abruptly.

As majority of the councillors staged a walkout from the council meeting demanding adjournment of all the agendas (proposals) placed before the council for its nod, the resolutions had to be put on hold.

When the meeting started, Mr. Saravanan read the resolution moved by him on installing a pen monument at the Corporation’s Trade Centre at Exhibition Grounds. Accepting it, the councillors also wanted him to add a council’s decision of installing the life-size statue of late Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi.

Even as the resolution on installing the pen monument and the statue was being read by the Mayor, councillor Ramakrishnan of DMK urged Mr. Saravanan to adjourn the agendas for today’s meeting. “The meeting which should have a minimum of 28 councillors for passing the agendas placed before the council now has only 27 members. Hence, the agendas for today’s meeting should be adjourned,” said Mr. Ramakrishnan, who was supported by most of the councillors in the meeting hall.

Mr. Saravanan, who was keen on passing the proposals, said that good number of agendas for the previous meeting was also put on hold and hence any further adjournment would seriously affect the development programmes of the Corporation.

Even as a few councillors in the hall supported the Mayor, it led to heated arguments and some of them shouted that Mr. Saravanan was the puppet of the BJP. Even though Commissioner V. Sivakrishnamurthy tried his best to restore normalcy in the council hall, the efforts went in vain and the Mayor left the hall saying that the meeting was being adjourned for 10 minutes.

 Councillor Ajay of ward 15, accusing the Mayor of obstructing all development works in his ward as he is an urban local body member from Scheduled Caste, staged a dharna by sitting on the floor in front of the dais on which Mr. Saravanan was sitting along with Mr. Sivakrishnamurthy and Deputy Mayor K.R. Raju. Despite appeals from fellow councillors and Mr. Sivakrishnamurthy, the dharna continued for about 15 minutes.

“Even though I’m expelled from the DMK, I’ll continue my protest as the Mayor is ignoring me and my ward because I’m a Dalit,” Mr. Ajay shouted.

After Mr. Sivakrishnamurthy continued talks with the protesting councilor, he gave-up the protest.