TIRUNELVELI: A few DMK women councillors of Tirunelveli corporation staged a protest during the council meeting on Thursday, alleging that the Tirunelveli central district unit in-charge and former minister TPM Mohideen Khan posed a life threat to them.
After nine members were elected to the taxation appeal committee, mayor PM Saravanan and Commissioner V Sivakrishnamurthy chaired the council meeting. Six councillors sat on the floor and demanded an explanation from the mayor during the meeting. Sivakrishnamurthy’s attempt to pacify them failed. The mayor and commissioner walked out of the meeting and returned after a while.
Councillors Maheswari, Revathy and Gokulavani said, “The mayor took us to meet DMK district in charge for picking the candidates for the election. Against our decision, Khan replaced three candidates with their supporters in the list of candidates. During the course of our discussion, we were threatened by him. There is no safety for women councillors.”
In the election, Raju, Jaganathan, Subbulakshmi, Kanthan, Geetha, Raveendhar, Ulaganathan, Ponmanickam and Mohideen Abdul Kadher were declared winners. Even though Khan removed three candidates from the list of councillors, all three of them contested as independent candidates and won.
Meanwhile, DMK councillors rejected a resolution moved by the mayor to name the Town Arch to Kurukuthurai junction road after Tamil scholar and orator Nellai Kannan. The councillors alleged Kannan was a critic of the late chief minister M Karunanidhi.