Belgaum: Unable to bear the humiliation from the officialdom in the Belgaum Zilla Panchayat, the elected members forced the President Fakeerappa D. Gorbal to postpone the general body meeting.

The irate members insisted on the Chair to ensure the presence of Chief Executive Officer M.E. Shivalingmurthy at the next meeting. Mr. Gorbal postponed the meeting to September 18.

Mr. Gorbal agreed with the charges levelled by members that the officials showed scant respect to the resolutions adopted by the House in the last three general body meetings. The officials were not courteous with any of the elected members.

Just before the Chair could take up the issues slated on the agenda, Shankar Maradagi urged all the officials to move out the meeting hall for some time as they had some thing to discuss among the elected members only. The officials left the hall without waiting for Chair's request.

Once the officials cleared the chairs, there were complaints galore from members across party lines. They alleged large-scale financial irregularities in the implementation of flood relief work taken up for 2005-06. Relief and other developmental work were decided without involving the members of concerned panchayats, they said.

Large sums of money were swallowed by officials and the elected members had been kept in the dark about relief works claimed to have been implemented, alleged Nazir Ahmed Maqboolsaab Nadaf.

He alleged that while the officials ignored panchayat members while organising official events, they were overenthusiastic in inviting the brothers of MLAs to such meetings.

Srishail Tugshetty alleged that no official in the zilla panchayat, taluk panchayat or gram panchayat responded to the local problems. The objective of decentralisation and devolution of power had been defeated, he said. Maruti Betageri alleged that Mr. Gorbal and Mr.Shivalingmurthy had developed a penchant for garlands and were often seen together at one or the other function.

Arjun Goral urged the Kannada-speaking members to support the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES) members in fighting against suspension of presidents and vice-presidents of Belgaum and Khanapur taluk panchayats.

Ironically, all these charges come at a time when Mr. Shivalingmurthy was declared the "Best National Literacy Mission Implementing Officer" in the State.

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