The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Not much time to fulfil poll promises: Opposition

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 07, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Not much time to fulfil poll promises: Opposition

By Our Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE, JAN. 6. "We have very little time left to fulfil our poll promises before the next civic body elections. And, there are not many achievements to place before the people as nothing much had been done over the last three years."

The leader of almost all Opposition parties in the Coimbatore Corporation Council had this to say amid the bedlam in the Council on Wednesday, when their demand for a Special Meeting on people's problems was turned down.

The time factor almost rang out like a refrain from each Opposition member who spoke on various issues facing the people, chiefly the plight of the residents in the unapproved layouts.

The Opposition, comprising the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), Congress, Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and Independents supporting them, pointed out that there was not a single Councillor who did not have any complaint against the Corporation.

Bypoll defeat

However, the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) members found the Opposition's assault amusing. They attributed this sudden move of stock taking to the defeat the Opposition suffered in the recent bypoll to the Standing Committees of the Council. The Mayor, T. Malaravan, said that the poll promise of abolishing parking fee was kept. The Opposition then harped on lack of amenities in the unapproved layouts. "Even AIADMK Councillors are shedding tears of blood owing to the conditions in these layouts," the CPI (M) Councillor, C. Padmanabhan, said. "Is it not unreasonable for the Corporation to spend Rs.1 crore a year on providing drinking water in tankers to these layouts when it can provide house connections and collect water charges?" Stating that they were apparently referring to the ban on use of MP and MLA constituency development funds to provide amenities in these layouts, the Mayor told the protesting members that the ban was imposed only by the DMK regime.

Who actually imposed the ban?

During a debate on this issue, the Singai S. Balan (AIADMK), told the Opposition members to ask themselves who had actually imposed the ban.

The Opposition members immediately switched to solid waste management and the proposal to hike drinking water charges. When nothing significant had been done to improve the city and living conditions, could hike in charges be justified, they asked.

The AIADMK members argued that the Opposition itself had not been so emotional on these issues for the last three years. They know that certain things were beyond the purview of the Corporation, such as the issue of unapproved layouts.

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