GHMC online meet stirs row
Opposition alleges Mayor is insecure, afraid of being held accountable
The first-ever online Council meeting of the GHMC is to be held on Tuesday amid disillusionment among corporators, who sought the meeting in its traditional physical form.
The meeting is the first for the new 150-member Council that was elected last December.
Amidst rumblings of discontent over holding the meeting virtually, Mayor Gadwal Vijayalakshmi said on Monday that the only reason for going online was to follow Covid19 safety protocols.
“The Council hall is quite small and in all, including officials and corporators, there would be around 200 people in the space. I decided it would be best for everyone’s safety, as a measure of abundant precaution, to hold the meeting online,” she said.
She said a group of BJP corporators met her with their concerns. “Some said all sectors have been opened up and there is no lockdown any more. I explained that given the pandemic situation, it would be best to have an online meeting. With the monsoon upon us, many corporators have issues they would like to discuss and bring to the notice of officials,” she said.
However, it was clear that several corporations were unhappy with the decision.
Pavani Vinay Kumar, BJP corporator from Musheerabad, said, “Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao inaugurated several buildings with thousands of people in attendance, and then hosted a lunch for them in a village. Ministers are inaugurating 2BHK buildings. They appear to have no problems with such actions. But when BJP demanded a physical GHMC Council meeting, the Mayor did not agree.”
The Mayor, he said, was afraid of being held accountable, and was insecure that the BJP would raise issues of people’s concerns, he said.
BJP corporator from Jubilee Hills D. Venkatesh, said “we were not inclined for a virtual meeting.
However, for the sake of the people, we agreed to attend. Her move is only to scuttle our voices. The Telangana government has opened bars and restaurants where hundreds are gathering every day. The government doesn't have any problem with that. But our demand for a physical meeting was hard to accept for them.”
Meanwhile, AIMIM has arranged a joint sitting for its corporators at Darussalam, the party headquarters, from where they can attend the meeting. Nanalnagar corporator Mohammed Naseeruddin, said “we were not in favour of the virtual meeting, but due to the pandemic, the corporation authorities insisted on this.”
Nasreen Sultana, corporator for Moghalpura division, said it would have been better if the meeting was held physically.
“This meeting is for the presentation of the budget, we will limit our participation to the subject. In the next meeting we will raise public issues related to our division,” she said.