BJP councillors boycott general body meeting of Kalaburagi City Corporation in protest against their own Mayor

BJP councillors boycott Kalaburagi City Corporation meeting in protest against Mayor's decisions; heated argument between Leader of Opposition and MLC. Mayor and councillors laud ISRO scientists for successful landing of Chandrayaan-3. Officials taken to task for failing to provide complete details.

The elected councillors of the BJP remained absent with a view to boycotting the general body meeting of the Kalaburagi City Corporation on Thursday in protest against various decisions of Mayor Vishal Dhargi. The Mayor also belongs to the BJP.

Of the BJP’s 23 elected councillors, only the Mayor remained present in the meeting.

And, all the 27 councillors of the Congress attended the meeting.

Though Mr. Dhargi tried to justify stating that the BJP councillors remained absent due to their personal reasons, the BJP councillors, who spoke to presspersons, said that the Mayor never consults them but takes decisions unilaterally.

They said that of the 34 items listed in the agenda of the general body meeting, most of them were proposed by the Congress councillors, while a mere four or five of the items proposed by the BJP councillors were considered.

Before proceeding to take up the agenda of the general body meeting, the Mayor, the councillors, Kalaburagi South MLA Allamprabhu Patil and MLCs Thippannappa Kamaknoor and Sunil Vallyapure lauded the scientists of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3.

And, a heated argument broke out between Mr. Vallyapure and Leader of the Opposition in the City Corporation Shaikh Ajmal Ahmed Gola when the latter asked the Mayor whether his party [BJP] councillors cannot tolerate a Dalit Mayor in office.