Mysore/Mysuru: Claiming that Mayor Shivakumar had run away from meetings to elect the Heads of MCC Standing Committees, which posts are vacant for months, former Mayor and senior Congress leader Ayub Khan alleged that rampant corruption was taking place in the last 7-8 months under BJP rule in the absence of Standing Committees’ Chairmen.

 Addressing a press meet at the Opposition Leader’s chamber in the MCC here yesterday, Ayub Khan, who is also a current Corporator, said that the Mayor had blatantly flouted the general norm that the Heads for all the MCC Standing Committees should be elected within seven days of the Mayoral polls. But now the norm has been given a go by and the Standing Committees have no Chairpersons to head them, which has severely hampered the development works, he maintained.

Noting that the Congress had staged a protest by locking up the Mayor’s Office in the past, Ayub Khan said that the Mayor who had cited his ill health for abstaining from meetings, is now taking umbrage under Assembly poll preparations.

Recalling that only three MCC Council meetings were held when Sunanda Palanetra was the Mayor earlier, he charged the incumbent Mayor of not making any preparations for the Budget, which should be presented before Mar. 31 as is the practice. Arguing that developmental works would be severely hit if the budget is not presented by the end of March, he said that the Budget cannot be presented without the Constitution of Finance Standing Committee. “I have not seen a Mayor who runs away from discussing crucial issues like the incumbent Shivakumar. The Mayor has held only two meetings so far in his eight months of power. These two meetings too were cut short as the Opposition confronted  the Mayor on several crucial issues. The Mayor is refraining from holding elections for electing the heads of Standing Committees out of fear that corruption and scams of the ruling BJP may come out,” he said adding that officials too are hand in glove with corrupt deals that are going on in the MCC. He urged Mayor Shivakumar to convene the MCC meeting at the earliest for the election of Standing Committee Heads.

Former Mayor Pushpalatha Jagannath, Corporators Arif Hussain, Sridhar, Gopi, Shobha Sunil, Rajani Annaiah, Lakshmi Kumar, Shivakumar, Satyaraj, Lokesh Piya, Hazira Seema, Pallavi Begum and others were present.

Protest demonstration

The Opposition Congress yesterday staged a unique demonstration in protest against the adjournment of the MCC Council Meeting for electing the Chairmen of MCC Standing Committees.

Upset over the postponement of the meeting for the third consecutive time, the Congress Corporators shouted slogans in front of the Mayor’s chamber for some time. Later, they entered the Mayor’s chamber and brought out the Mayor’s chair and pasted a poster of a donkey on it, as a means of registering their protest.

They accused Mayor Shivakumar of deliberately postponing the polls for electing the Heads of MCC                  Standing Committees, which are long pending.

This was the third time that the Meeting had been postponed this year after the one on Feb. 2 and the second one earlier this month.