Oppn prepares for protests as House meets after 5 months
Sanjeev K. Sharma
JAMMU, June 23: Though the Mayor, Rajinder Sharma has said that the scheduled General House Meeting (GHM) of Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) shall “discuss and pass” much awaited building bylaws on Saturday, the Opposition Congress along with Independent Councillors in the elected Urban Local Body informed that they will remain on protest mode during the meeting which is being held after a gap of about five months.
“Many resolutions of Opposition Councillors were not allowed and we will protest against this move of the Mayor and others at the helm,” Dwarka Chowdhary, Congress Chief Whip in the elected house of JMC said in a press conference today.
He informed that he had a resolution which was not allowed and it was that Property Tax passed by the House of elected Councillors after deliberations should be implemented and not the one propounded by the bureaucrats.
“First big business houses should be taxed,” Chowdhary maintained claiming that among rejected resolutions was the one of Statehood restoration to J&K.
Councillor Gourav Chopra, who initially won as Congress candidate but later on joined newly floated political party Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) by former Chief Minister of J&K, Ghulam Nabi Azad said: “I had a resolution that Property Tax should be revoked but I came to know that the Mayor has not allowed it.”
He also said that the Congress, Independents and DPAP Councillors will jointly grill the Mayor on issues like power cuts, woes of pensioners and others issues.
Parmod Kapahi, BJP Councillor said that the House is meeting after 4-5 months so naturally there might be resentment among the Opposition but the truth is that developments are going-on in the city with a good pace.
“All the Councillors will have their questions and proposals and I feel proceedings of the House will be peaceful and if there will be any issue, it will be discussed after which some fruitful result may emerge,” he continued adding: “All the genuine objections shall be allowed and supported but none of the wrong one shall be allowed.”
Independent Councillor, Inder Singh Soodan said, his resolution which was not allowed was that the House should be dissolved if those at the helm fail to maintain its dignity.
“Now the House is conducting its business after five months while it was supposed to do that on monthly basis. This was such an issue which was to be seriously discussed as many of the BJP Councillors were also supporting me on this but the Mayor has not accepted this resolution,” he claimed.
Still another Independent Councillor, Prof. Yudhvir Singh claimed that attempts are being made by those at the helm to kill democracy and bring-in autocracy.
“My resolution was, if the House is supreme then why the Government is imposing things like Property Tax, taxes on water, electricity etc overruling what the House passed,” he said.
Singh also said that why the resolution unanimously passed by the Mayor in the House on Property Tax was not honoured and why the bureaucracy is imposing their decisions in this regard.
However, Congress Councillor, Rajinder Singh Jamwal informed that his resolution for Home for babies abandoned in dustbins or drains was admitted.
On protest by Opposition Councillors, the JMC Mayor said: “Let them have their protests. The main agenda of GHM will be discussion on building bylaws and passing them and entire Jammu will heave a sigh of relief when these bylaws are passed.”
Mayor Sharma informed that proceedings of the House shall have live telecast so that the people of Jammu may see who all speaks for them so that next time during elections the public may take a wise decision while voting such persons.
He said that passing of building bylaws will facilitate houses to get approved building plans after which the banks may provide loans to such households for construction purposes and it will also increase the value of such houses.
Counting some more benefits for the people of after passing of building bylaws he said: “Houses in lanes with less than 10 feet width will also have approved building plans and similar benefits shall be there for lands whose building plan clearance used to invite objections due to nature of title of the land like Khad, Nehri etc.”
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