Opposition Congress members in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation also accuse the ruling BJP of sidelining the opposition in the civic body.
The general board meeting of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, held on Friday, was marked by heated debate as the opposition Congress charged the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) with favouring certain areas while taking up development projects and curtailing the role of the opposition party in the functioning of the civic body.
Speaking during zero hour, leader of the opposition Badruddin Shaikh alleged that the civic body was interested in developing roads and supplying water only in West Zone and New West Zone. He added that South, North and Central zones of the city were overlooked for such projects.
In response, chairman of water and sewerage committee, Jatin Patel gave justification for this. He said that recently, various projects were approved in those areas and the capacity of Jaspur water plant had also been increased. However, this angered Congress members. They said that during the zero hour, only members of the opposition should be given a chance to confront the ruling party and not vice versa.
Liyaqatbhai of Congress alleged BJP was curtailing the role of the opposition in the civic body. "Earlier, board meetings used to be held twice a week. Then it was decided to hold it once a week and soon after, it became a fortnightly affair. Now, we have just one meeting per month. This means, we get just one chance in a month to present our views." Incidentally, Congress members were left out of the standing committee of the civic body recently.
Shaikh further said that the target of tax collection for the financial year 2011-12 was Rs655 crore. Out of them, Rs328 crore should have been collected till now. However, only Rs230 crore have been collected, indicating a deficit of 100 crore.
The Congress members also staged protest by displaying anti-BJP banners. An interesting streamer read: "Corruption ma Karnataka ma Yeddyurappa, Gujarat ma Modirappa, Corporation ma Asitappa" (for corruption, Karnataka has Yeddyurappa, Gujarat has Modi and AMC has mayor Asit Vora).
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