Centre of attention:Marshals taking away Champapet Telugu Desam Party Corporator S. Ramana Reddy for trying to stall ward committee election on Thursday.
HYDERABAD: Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) managed to get 137 of the 150 ward committees elected amid heckling and charges of “politicising” the election at the special meeting on Thursday.
Thirteen ward committees remained unfilled as the required number of eligible women candidates to fulfil the 50 per cent quota in each panel did not file nominations. These are to be filled within a month by calling for fresh applications from women only since general category got nominations. Each panel had seven to 10 members.
With formation of these panels, a major step towards decentralising the administration to the ward level was taken as the government has already announced that 20 per cent annual budget will be allotted to them. The importance of such panels can be judged by the fact that all political parties vied with each other to fill them with their own nominees.
Ministers, MPs and even MLAs along with corporators jostled with one another to get their own nominees in. Such was the intense competition that the special meeting was postponed last month when the ruling Congress failed to reach a consensus among its own members.
As per rules, the ward committee headed by the respective corporator has to be filled with electors representing the civil society like president/secretary of registered residents' welfare associations, member of tax payers association, office-bearer of slum or senior member of a self-help group, member of a NGO, chamber of commerce, medical council or any prominent citizen.
In the hectic parleys that went on till late into Wednesday night, it was decided by Mayor B. Kartika Reddy that the main opposition, Telugu Desam will be given three slots in the wards they represent while its partner Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) had a field day save for allowing one or two Congress chosen members into panels represented by its corporators.
Apparently, last minute changes were made and this did not go well with the TD as led by its floor leader S. Srinivas Reddy, made vain bids to disrupt the proceedings many a time. At one point the Mayor asked marshals to remove Champapet corporator S. Ramana Reddy as he stood on her podium, tore some papers and flung those shouting slogans. He thus earned the dubious distinction of being the first corporator to be lifted out.
Even while Congress floor leader K. Venkatesh (Golnaka) began to read out names as proposer and being seconded by S. Harivardhan Reddy (Habsiguda), TD's Mr. Srinivas Reddy and his colleagues surrounded the Mayor alleging “politicisation” of the poll and demanding “categorywise proposals”. A resolute Mrs. Reddy refused to cower and conducted the poll and completed it within four hours.
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