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Mayor, deputies meet rebels; get back on track with issues
Gurugram The mayor and her two deputies met with the councillors who had tried, but failed, to pass a vote of no-confidence against the trio last month in the presence
Gurugram The mayor and her two deputies met with the councillors who had tried, but failed, to pass a vote of no-confidence against the trio last month in the presence of the new commissioner of the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram, Vinay Pratap Singh.
Singh had called all the councillors of all 35 wards for an informal interaction at the civic body’s Sector 34 office.
During the meeting, Azad said, “Gurugram belongs to all of us and we all have to work together for its betterment.”
The meeting went off without a hitch, with no disagreements or protests from the mayors or the councillors.
On December 3, 2019, 13 councillors had boycotted the MCG’s house meeting to protest the mayor’s decision to exclude seven of their agenda points from the final list. Subsequently, a letter bearing the signatures of 19 councillors, asking for the removal of the mayor and her two deputies from their posts, was submitted to the divisional commissioner, Ashok Kumar Sangwan.
A minimum of 12 councillors are needed for a no-confidence motion, but on December 18, when a floor test was expected, not a single councillor attended the meeting with Sangwan and the motion was quashed.
The hostility, however, continued among the mayors and councillors, with an alleged Finance & Contract Committee (F&CC) meeting being held on December 27, 2019, without notifying the “rebel” councillors, leading to objections from them.
On Wednesday, 10 councillors from the group had met the MCG commissioner to apprise him of the “irregularities” in the MCG.
However, on Friday, they did not protest or bring up any discrepancy during the meeting.
Incidentally, on Thursday, based on Ward 35 councillor, RS Rathee’s allegations, that the green belt between Bristol Chowk and Khushboo Chowk along Gurgaon-Faridabad Road has numerous anomalies, the mayor had submitted a letter to Vinay Pratap Singh, pressing for an enquiry into the matter.
Rathee was the self-proclaimed leader of the group looking to oust the mayor and her deputies.
Other key suggestions during Friday’s meeting by councillors were to create a separate waste collection system for Faridabad and reserve the Bandhwari plant solely for Gurugram, reduce the booking amount of community centres, complete the takeover of markets in HSVP sectors, expedite the completion of pedestrian bridges at Gurugram railway station, establish citizen facilitation tenders and setting up a dispensary in each MCG ward.
The MCG commissioner said that tenders related to emergency maintenance would be done on an annual basis so that these works could be taken up immediately. He also said that there will be counters at the tehsil level for property tax and development fee, and it will be made mandatory to get a no-objection certificate from these counters before getting a property registered.
He also said that to better rankings in the upcoming Swachh Survekshan 2020, instructions have been given to all officials to clean all garbage points.
