Uncertainty looms over presentation of Kochi Corporation Budget

The CPI, which heads the Finance Committee, has refused to undertake the statutory responsibility of presenting the Budget on February 6 over a power-sharing dispute with the CPI(M)

Uncertainty looms over the presentation of the annual Budget of the Kochi Corporation with the Communist Party of India (CPI), which heads the Finance Committee, refusing to undertake the statutory responsibility of presenting the Budget on February 6 over a power-sharing dispute. The crisis has evolved as a major embarrassment to the LDF-led committee in the council.

In the event of the Deputy Mayor refusing to present the Budget before the date, the Mayor will have to ask the Corporation Secretary to present it, failing which the council will have to demit office, according to a civic administrator.

Time has almost run out for K.A. Ansiya, a CPI councillor and Deputy Mayor, to convene a meeting of the Finance Committee to get the Budget approved before presenting it in the council. The Deputy Mayor can present the Budget only after the State Budget is presented by the Finance Minister in the Assembly. The State Budget is scheduled to be presented in the Assembly on Monday.

The CPI had been engaged in a hard bargain with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI (M)] for the post of the Development Standing Committee chairperson. Though the CPI had demanded the post, the CPI(M) said there was no pre-election understanding for power-sharing. Discussions between the leaderships of the two parties had failed to resolve the deadlock, sources said.

Meanwhile, Mayor M. Anilkumar said the civic body had the statutory responsibility to pass the Budget as scheduled earlier. It will discharge its duties as envisaged in the Kerala Municipalities Act, he added.

At the same time, CPI leaders said the CPI(M) should have adopted a more lenient view of the issue and resolved it before it snowballed into a political crisis for the LDF.