Thursday, November 24, 2011

Free-for-all at Chennai Corporation's first Council Meet

Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai on November 24, 2011:
Source:http://expressbuzz.com/cities/chennai/free-for-all-at-chennai-corporation/336406.html
CHENNAI: The first Chennai Corporation Council Meet held on Wednesday here at the Ripon Building began on a bad note for the opposition DMK.
No sooner than the Council proceedings began, the Opposition floor leader Subash Chandra Bose (DMK), started his speech saying that the public were suffering due to the recent hike in milk price and bus fare. When Bose continued with his speech despite Mayor Saidai S Duraisamy’s objection, the ruling party councillors, who sat next to him, snatched his mike and prevented him from speaking.
Even after their ‘intervention’, Bose continued with his speech. Irritated with his remarks against the State government, the AIADMK councillors surrounded him and shouted him down.  Empty bottles were hurled at Bose and other DMK councillors who rushed to his rescue received blows.
Soon, the DMK councillors staged a walk out and raised slogans protesting the AIADMK-led Corporation on the premises of the Ripon Building. “There is no democracy in AIADMK regime, we wanted to register a  public grievance and our party’s protest in the Council, but we were denied a chance,” Bose told reporters. “There is no unity among them and they lost the Ambattur chairman post to a DMK member. Irked by the defeat, they charged at the Opposition councillors,” he said.
“There is no protection for Opposition councillors at the council meet and such an unruly behaviour is annoying,” said senior DMK councillor Vasu. Reacting to the issue, Mayor Duraisamy said that the DMK councillors wanted to disrupt the proceedings. They wanted to make statements politicising the council meet and wanted to gain political mileage out of it,” Duraisamy said.

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