Minister holds meet to resolve rift between Mysuru Mayor, MCC Commissioner

Corporators kept in the dark about anti-COVID measures by officials, says Mayor

Minister in charge of Mysuru district S.T. Somashekar on Saturday held a meeting to resolve the differences between Mayor Tasneem and Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) Commissioner Gurudatta Hegde that had reached a new high over the alleged neglect of corporators by officials.

After the meeting held in the backdrop of the Mayor accusing Mr. Hegde of ignoring her and elected representatives of MCC while taking up programmes to fight COVID-19, Mr. Somashekar said he had asked the Commissioner to take them into confidence.

Mayor Tasneem had sought a meeting with Mr. Somashekar after accusing the Commissioner of keeping her and the corporators in the dark about the programmes taken up by the civic body to tackle the situation arising out of the spread of COVID-19 in the city.

Alleging widespread discrimination in the distribution of grocery packets, Ms. Tasneem said Mr. Hegde had not shared with her any details about the donations the civic body had received from philanthropists despite her requests for the same several times.

Neither she nor the local corporators have any idea about the distribution of grocery packets to the people. The corporators, who are besieged by requests from people in their respective wards for aid, are distributing groceries to the poor out of their own funds. She was unable to secure even four grocery packets for distribution to the poor in Udayagiri, who had approached her directly.

She also alleged that she is not kept informed about the programmes chalked out by the MCC officials. Recently, a programme was held to launch mobile fever clinics on the MCC premises, but the Mayor said she came to know about the event when an official, at the eleventh hour, forwarded to her an SMS meant for others, as it was addressed to “Sir”.

The MCC Commissioner, the Mayor said, had countered her complaints by arguing that he reports to the Deputy Commissioner, leaving her and the corporators exasperated.

Mr. Somashekar, after holding a meeting with Ms .Tasneen, Deputy Mayor Sridhar and other corporators, besides Mr. Hegde and other officials, hoped the communication gap between the officials and elected representatives narrows down.

With regard to release of funds for corporators to take up relief measures in their respective wards, Mr. Somashekar said Minister for Urban Development Byrathi Basavaraj is scheduled to visit Mysuru on May 7 and a discussion in the regard will be held with him.

However, Mr Somashekar expressed satisfaction with the measures taken by the officials with regard to containing the spread of COVID-19 in Mysuru.

It may be mentioned here that Ms. Tasneem’s predecessor Pushpalatha Jagannath too had serious differences with Mr. Hegde over release of funds for Mayoral grants and had publicly vented her ire against the Commissioner for his refusal to release the grants citing paucity of funds.