As he was visiting the Secretariat in the morning, Chennai Mayor Saidai S Duraisamy was not present at the start of this month’s Corporation Council meeting. This meant Deputy Mayor P Benjamin had to step up to preside over the proceedings. This was the first time that Benjamin fulfilled this duty. It was also the first time in years that the Deputy Mayor has had to preside over Council proceedings.
It wasn’t all smooth for Benjamin. Even as he read out the answers to the tabled questions and then introduced items for the Council’s approval in batches, he was forced to deal with a situation the Mayor finds himself in every month — protests from DMK Councillors and their inevitable walkout.
The DMK Councillors had already walked out at the beginning of the meeting, to talk to newspersons outside the Council Hall about the protests organised by their party over civic issues. They returned to their seats soon after. Benjamin had introduced the first batch of items for the Council’s approval, and was granting permission to some councillors to deliberate on the matters at hand. Even as Benjamin called for votes for the first batch of resolutions, DMK’s leader in the Council Subash Chandra Bose, stood up asking for permission to speak. But Benjamin did not notice this, and put the batch of items to vote.
Benjamin tried to pacify them by saying that they would get to speak on other items if they wanted to.