When contacted, Mehra told Newsline that she had not taken part in the demonstration. “I had gone to the Hindu Mahasabha Bhawan, which is not too far from the CPM office, for a party meeting as I was deeply concerned about the killing of Sangh activists in Kannur by CPM cadres. It was decided there that the BJP would march to the CPM headquarters to protest. I said that it was against my office to take part in the march, to which everyone present agreed. I then left the Mahasabha office in my official car without joining the procession,” she said.

Some days earlier, the Congress had demanded the Mayor’s resignation on the ground that she had taken part in a protest in which Delhi state BJP president Harsh Vardhan was also present.

No quorum for 3 MCD panel meetings
Three meetings of MCD Councillors got postponed on Monday as quorum could not be completed. The meeting of the Slum Committee (44 members), Remunerative Projects Committee (32 members) and Appointments Committee (44 members) were postponed for lack of the required number of members.

While the quorum for the Slum Committee is 15 members, just around nine turned up. For the RP Committee sitting, only around eight members turned up.

While such postponement means that development work gets delayed, it also leads to unnecessary expenditure on the part of the corporation. Each councillor coming for a Committee meeting gets an allowance of Rs 300. Even when the meeting does not take place, councillors turn up to claim the amount. This means that the corporation spent some thousands of rupees on Monday without any gain, sources said.

Sources say that another problem is that many Councillors just sign on the register during House meetings and do not sit through the proceedings. In this way, they walk away with their money without really contributing to the corporation’s work.

Congress sources claimed that BJP Councillors had deliberately stayed away from the meetings to avoid questions on their “violent” demonstration at the CPI(M) headquarters on Sunday. But what was surprising was that even among Congress Councillors only one out of seven turned up for the meeting of the RP Committee.