UDUPI: The issue of overloaded iron ore lorries damaging the National Highway 17 dominated the general body meeting of the Udupi Zilla Panchayat on Friday.

Raising the issue, Leader of the Opposition Srinivas Poojary of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said the leaders of other political parties had not co-operated with the BJP when it blocked the entry of the lorries at Shiroor.

The Independent MLA from Brahmavar, K. Jayaprakash Hegde, said if the State Government did not have power to stop the movement of overloaded iron ore lorries in Udupi district, the legislators of all parties should stop the lorries at Shiroor. Re-installing the weighbridge in Shiroor would not serve the purpose. Mr. Hegde said the movement of these lorries should be stopped at Bellary, the starting point. The argument that the National Highway 17 should be protected in Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts showed the short-sightedness of the BJP.

The roads of all the districts through which the overloaded iron ore lorries passed should be protected. The State Government should install a weighbridge at Bellary, Mr. Hegde said. MLC Pratapchandra Shetty (Congress) wanted to know why the earlier weighbridge was dismantled.

The decision of Dr. Acharya to ask the Iron Ore Lorry Owners' Association to re-install the bridge was flawed. It was the same association, which had dismantled the weighbridge, Mr. Shetty said.

When the BJP MLA Raghupati Bhat called him to join the BJP's struggle against the overloaded lorries, he suggested that the matter be discussed in the zilla panchayat.

But Mr. Bhat said that he had fixed the date for the protest against entry of the overloaded lorries.

The intention of the BJP was to politicise the issue and reap political benefits from it, Mr. Shetty said.

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