The 40 councillors of Trinamool Congress tabled a motion in the monthly meeting of the civic body, held on Monday afternoon.

The motion — “Regularisation of Building Plans in the Added Areas” — was brought to nail an alleged unholy nexus between a section of the top brass of KMC Buildings’ Department and Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya.

Opposition leader Javed Ahmed Khan accused the Mayor of an alleged involvement in regularising the illegal building plans in Ward number 100, of which Bhattacharya is the councilor.

“The regularisation was supposed to take place in wards ranging from 101 to 141. Why is it being carried out for the residents of living in ward number 100?” Khan questioned, while addressing the media.

Rubbishing the allegations, the Mayor retaliated saying that the introduction of the “regularisation plan” had hampered Khan’s interests.

“There has not been any such case in my ward. Javed Khan wants to legalise the illegal building plans in his ward,” said Bhattacharya.

According to the municipal records, Ward 66 (of which Khan is a councilor) contains the maximum number of illegal buildings.

Ten councillors, including the Mayor, discussed the issue for three and half hours. “It is perhaps the longest motion brought in any civic body monthly meeting. It is an unprecedented incident in the recent years. As far as I can recollect, there has not been such a long motion since 1985,” said municipal Chairman, Nirmal Mukherjee

The regularisation of the building norms were supposed to take place only in wards located in the southern and western fringes of the city consisting of 41 municipal wards (from101 to 141) which contains a good number of people who migrated from Bangladesh in the 1950s and 1970s.

These areas, formerly a part of the Panchayat and Union Board, were incorporated in the KMC jurisdiction in 1985.

Hence, most of the houses in these areas do not certify the KMC building norms.

The policy of regularising these building plans, located in the added areas, was announced in the KMC 2008-2009 budget that took place in March.

The opposition councillors had protested against the decision by walking out.