The open rift between the Congress and the Majilis Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) members in the standing committee of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) led to the postponement of the committee meeting for the second day on Thursday as the former skipped the meeting.
Because of this, several important projects and other developmental works which need the approval of the standing committee have been stuck up. In Thursday’s agenda about 40 items were listed for discussion and approval.
On Wednesday too, the standing committee meeting was postponed by its chairperson and mayor M Majid Hussian due to lack of quorum as all the Congress members kept away citing some excuse.
In the present 15-member standing committee, eight members belong to the Congress and remaining seven to the MIM and their term would expire on June 6. As elections to the committee are scheduled to be held on June 6, doubts are being raised whether the mayor will call a meeting of the committee before that day.
As per the GHMC rules, the standing committee has to meet at least once a week to discuss the listed agenda. It has the power to approve or reject them on various grounds. The last standing committee meeting was held on April 18.
Sources told Express that the two standing committee meetings on Wednesday and Thursday were postponed due to ego problems among the two parties. On Wednesday, four to five Congress members came to the GHMC head office to attend the meeting at 3 p.m. and sat in the deputy mayor’s chamber waiting for mayor’s call for attending the meeting.
At the same time, the mayor was holding discussions with the MIM members in his chambers and the discussions went on for over 45 minutes.
This upset the Congress members and they left the place. A few minutes later, the mayor called for the meeting but no Congress member was present forcing the mayor to postpone the meeting to Thursday.
On Thursday, the mayor along with MIM committee members came to the meeting on time but could not begin the meeting as Congress committee members did not turn up for the meeting. Though a few Congress members were present in the head office they deliberately did not attend the meeting in a tit-for-tat to the Wednesday’s incident.
Deputy mayor G Raj Kumar told Express that due to a large number of marriages in Hyderabad, the committee members were busy attending to the marriages and could not find time to attend to the meeting.