Councillors belonging to All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) staged a walkout protesting against the resolution passed in regard to hike in property tax during the Corporation council meeting held here on Friday.
The special council meeting convened to review the petitions in regard to the property tax review petition was chaired by Mayor J. Illamathi.
As soon as the meeting began, CPI (M) councillors walked out of the meeting hall in protest while raising slogans against the implementation of the property tax hike.
“We condemn the implementation of hike in property tax as it will only add to the burden of people who have had a tough two years due to the pandemic,” said AIADMK councillor S Rajmohan.
BJP Councillor G Dhanapal called for the officials to hold an opinion meeting to ask residents and traders for their views on the matter as proposed by the Corporation earlier.
Retorting to this, the Mayor said that the decisions have been taken from the opinions received from the public through the advertisements made in newspapers in this regard.
She said that property tax has been raised only now after 2008 and that about 52% of people who live in spaces below 600 feet within the Corporation limits would not be affected by the hike.
Mr. Dhanapal demanded that at least the hike be reduced by 50% to take some burden off the people.
Deputy Mayor S. Rajappa cited how Mr Dhanapal opined that Prime Minister Narendra Modi implements projects only after getting the approval of Parliament, the DMK government had similarly sought the views of the people in regard to the raise.
Further, he declared that the resolution had been passed unanimously and adopted with the support of the people's representatives in the council meeting.
Following this, councillors belonging to the BJP, AIADMK and CPI(M) walked out in protest.
