MYSURU: High drama was witnessed in the city on Thursday when Mysuru City Corporation Commissioner Shilpa Nag called an emergency press conference to announce her resignation, while accusing Mysuru Deputy Commissioner Rohini Sindhuri of harassment and highhandedness. However, the latter has denied the charges.
Though the running feud between the DC and the Corporation commissioner was known in official circles, Shilpa’s decision to announce her resignation caught the city administration and the citizens off guard. Shilpa Nag, a 2014 batch IAS officer and a native of Hassan, stole the limelight by setting up the Covid Mitra with the help of volunteers, introducing triaging and tele-consultation services alongside preparing for the third wave.
In tears, Shilpa read out her resignation letter, addressed to Chief Secretary P Ravi Kumar. She alleged that the DC has waged a war against the City Corporation that has hurt her and also her subordinates. Only two wards in Mysuru City Corporation were in the Red zone, whereas the DC has given a report that all wards in Mysuru City are red, which sent a wrong signal against the Corporation, the Commissioner, officers and also elected representatives, hurting their morale, she said.
Refuting the charges that the city corporation had created Covid Care Centres with 1,500 beds, without the approval of the district administration, Shilpa said the district administration did not even give tablets to Covid Mitras. Rohini, who does not know anything about Covid Mitra, desperately tried to take credit for it during the interaction with the Prime Minister, she alleged.
“We managed to mobilise Rs 12 crore in CSR funding and are effectively focused on containing the pandemic, other than preparing for the third wave. I have worked with many officers, but not in such a suffocating atmosphere. I have always respected her, but I wish no other officer gets to deal with get such an arrogant Deputy Commissioner,” she charged.
Shilpa also alleged that the DC had told corporate entities not to extend CSR funding to the city corporation, but to give it to the district administration. “The egoist attitude of the DC and hunger for publicity has made her to personally target me and other corporation officials. I have not spoken to my son for a week. My peace has been disturbed. I am not going out helpless, but I am moving out with great pain. I am firm on my resignation,” she added.
On her part, Deputy Commissioner Rohini Sindhuri said the accusations were false and contrary to facts. In a statement, she said, “It is untrue that there was any harassment from me and none has been mentioned even in the statement issued by Shilpa Nag. She had stopped attending Covid reviews by the DC. The MCC was submitting unsigned and contradictory ward-wise Covid figures on new cases, deaths and active cases. I had ordered that same be rectified.”
“I have ordered that government CCCs be opened in Mysuru City which did not have a single one until recently. In the circumstances, None of this constitutes harassment by any stretch of imagination. Nag was made in-charge of CSR for the whole district. It was later informed to me that she spent almost the whole of it within Mysuru City. So I had asked for a full and proper account of it, but no reply has been received until now. The accounts of spending of the CSR by her are still awaited,” she said.