VIJAYAWADA: Chaos prevailed at the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) budget session on Saturday when heated arguments were exchanged between the Opposition YSR Congress and ruling TDP corporators over the false projections in the budget proposal for the fiscal year 2017-18.
Mayor Koneru Sridhar, in his speech, listed various development works executed in the city by the VMC through the allocation of adequate budget, despite the corporation is facing a financial crunch. This statement drew flak from the YSRC corporators, who stated that budget proposals presented by the TDP leaders are just a jugglery of numbers.
Following which, heated arguments were exchanged between YSRC floor leader in VMC B N Punyaseela and Mayor Sridhar. Meanwhile, corporate P Subhashini who recently shifted her loyalty to the TDP from the YSRC demanded Opposition to remain silent and allow the Mayor to continue his speech.
Punyaseela and Subhashini engaged in a verbal duel for some time where the latter claimed that the former used unparliamentary language against her. But Punyaseela said that she had not used any such language and asked the Mayor to listen to the recording of minutes to check the veracity of Subhashini’s claims. But the Mayor said the minutes were not recorded and suspended Punyaseela from the session for refusing to tender an apology to the TDP corporate.
Following the suspension of YSR Congress floor leader Punyaseela, YSR Congress corporators boycotted the session. The councillors also raised slogans against the Mayor outside the hall. On witnessing heated arguments between the councillors, the Mayor suspended the House for 10 minutes. Later, the TDP leaders approved the budget unilaterally in the absence of Opposition leaders.
Despite the session intended to discuss the budget, towards which residents are eagerly waiting, the Mayor and the councillors showed little interest in conducting the session as it was started past scheduled time (At 11.10 am instead of the scheduled time 10:30 am). Even before the discussion on the budget could start, the House served as a platform for the ruling and Opposition councillors to mudslinging each other and waste the valuable time. Describing the budget as “anti-people”, CPI (M) corporate G Adilakshmi questioned the fund allocations in the budget.