Kathivakkam civic chief ousted
Published: 25/8/2009
G Saravanan
Chennai, August 24:
DMK and Congress councillors on Monday passed the ‘No confidence motion’ brought against the Kathivakkam civic chief A Murugavel with a thumping majority.
During the special session to debate the motion against Murugavel, DMK successfully poached another fence sitter from AIADMK, thus surpassing the mandatory figure of over 80 per cent to remove chairman from the post.
Though Murugavel abstained from the whole proceedings, 20 votes came in favour of removing him and only three were found against the motion.
Murugavel, the DMK party chairman of the selection grade municipality, was under pressure ever since he switched over to the rival AIADMK camp few weeks ago with his supporters.
With the blessings of local MLA and State Fisheries Minister K P P Samy, Murugavel was selected to the coveted post in the municipality in 2006.
During the initial days, of the 24 total members, the municipality had 14 DMK councillors, two Congress councillors and 8 AIADMK councillors.
Since the DMK had majority, they elected Murugavel as chairman and Thirusangu as vice chairman of the municipality. But differences started creeping up between the chairman and minister within few months and it started affecting the smooth functioning of the municipality.
When he was at the helm of affair in the municipality, there have been several corruption charges against him and more importantly, senior officials from Municipal Administration had also conducted an enquiry on his role in diverting funds meant for self help groups in the municipality.
Finally, to secure his posting, Murugavel switched over to the rival AIADMK camp last month. But the DMK stalwarts in Kathivakkam engineered faction in the AIADMK camp. As a fall out, four AIADMK councillors joined the DMK in the first week of August.
Regional Director for Municipal Administration will forward the official result to the Commissioner and final notification is expected in a few days. Meanwhile, Murugavel moved the court seeking a stay on the whole proceedings.