Council passes resolution against Railway Budget

Issue unites ruling front and Opposition

An adjournment motion brought in by both the ruling front and Opposition, along with a calling attention motion that the Mayor refused to reply, added steam to the council meeting of the Kozhikode Municipal Corporation on Thursday.

Both the fronts were unanimous in their opinion that Kerala was neglected in the recently presented Railway Budget.

But a mention by councillor M. Mohanan of the CPI(M) that the Kerala government should have done a bit of homework to get its needs heard irritated the Opposition.

Other Left councillors, who participated in the discussion, went on to add that the BJP government was only implementing what the UPA had sanctioned.

This added fuel to the fire.

Thus the Opposition, though in favour of the motion, abstained from voting. The council then passed the resolution against the Railway Budget.

Later, a calling attention motion by Congress councillor C.P. Salim regarding the kiosk that was set up at the Corporation office to help the public fill various application forms was rejected by the Mayor citing that there were too many questions packaged in the motion.

Noisy

The council turned quite noisy with the opposition councillors shouting their arguments against the Mayor’s move even as the rest of the councillors passed the 97-point agenda.

The council also unanimously passed the motion brought in by CPI-M councillor M. Radhakrishnan demanding that the AUP School, Malapparamba, which went through a tough phase recently, should be taken over by the State government.

It also passed a motion flaying the increase in train fares that was presented by SJD councillor P. Kishenchand.

He termed the increase in charges just before the Railway Budget, a challenge to the public.

It was also undemocratic and demanded that the Union government reviewed the decision, he said.

Another motion presented by CPI(M) councillor V.K. Mohandas demanding that the income limit for welfare pension should be reversed to Rs.3 lakh as the reduction of the limit caused much difficulty to common people, was also passed by the council.