The stalemate at the Thiruvananthapuram city Corporation following the ongoing protest by the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over revenue collection issues is set to continue, with the party refusing to call off the protest after a discussion on the issue at a special council meeting on Tuesday.
The Left Democratic Front (LDF), meanwhile, is planning to launch house visits across the city to allay the fears of the public over whether their revenue remittances have reflected in the official records.
The special council meeting was convened to discuss an action plan for controlling the use of plastic carry bags and products in the city.
The BJP councillors, who have been sitting on a protest at the council hall since last week, decided to cooperate with the meeting. But, they sat holding placards condemning the administration over the revenue fund misappropriation issue.
UDF walks out
As soon as the meeting began, the councillors of the Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) demanded an immediate discussion on the issue. However, with Mayor Arya Rajendran maintaining that the discussion could be held after the main agenda of the special meeting, the UDF councillors walked out.
Later, when the issue was taken up for discussion, BJP councillor M.R. Gopan put forward four demands — the council should pass a resolution demanding the arrest of revenue officials involved in fund misappropriation, a ward-wise list of those who have pending building tax should be published within a week, the online system for tax collection should be updated within a month and a help desk has to be set up for those who have paid their taxes, but which has not been reflected in the system.
The BJP would continue with the protests until the demands were met, he said.
Replying to the demands, the Mayor said that the administration had taken all possible steps against the erring officials. They were suspended pending investigation and now they had been charged under non-bailable offences. Any further action, including arrest, would be based on the investigation. In case of lapses in investigation, the Corporation itself would take up the issue with the government.
List in a month
Ms. Rajendran said that the steering committee had decided to publish within a month the ward-wise list of those who had not paid building taxes to allay the fears of the public. The civic body had written to the Minister for Local Self Governments regarding the issues in the Information Kerala Mission’s software for tax collection. It was expected to be resolved soon. She requested the BJP to cooperate with the administration by calling off their protests.
However, the BJP councillors refused to relent and began raising slogans as soon as the council meeting ended. The leaders later announced plans for stepping up the protests in the coming days. BJP workers will lay siege to the Corporation office later this week.
