The PMC Officers' Association, however, withdrew the dharna late in the evening and also dropped its plan to intensify the agitation by resorting to indefinite strike following the intervention by Mayor Vatsala Andekar.

The Mayor assured the aggrieved officers that a ``code of conduct'' would soon be framed to avoid confrontations between the officers and the political workers.

A coordination committee comprising members of the Officers' Association and the elected representatives would be established to frame the code of conduct, she said asserting that both the officers and the elected members should strictly abide by the guidelines set by the committee. The first meeting of the committee will be held on May 6, Andekar said.

It may be noted here that the flash strike call was issued by the Officers Association following the blackening of the face of water department chief Ramesh Ghodke by a group of city Youth Congress members two days ago. The Association had demanded immediate arrest of the accused and had also pressed that the Pune police should probe all the similar instances that occurred in past wherein the officer concerned had lodged a police complaint.

The police had arrested the six youth Congress members acting on a complaint by Ghodke. However, the association went ahead with its scheduled plan to stage a dharna demanding an assurance from the Mayor that the civic officials would be given due protection in future.The Class III and Class IV employees of the PMC extended a token support to their seniors by participating in the dharna for a brief period. However, as all the department heads and their subordinate officers had joined the dharna the civic work came to a grinding halt today.

Finally, at about 5 pm, the Mayor invited the agitating officers for talks. A delegation of senior civic officers comprising Arun Patil, Madhav Harihar, Ramesh Ghodke, A V Kalamkar and president of the PMC Employees' Union Appasaheb Bhosle called on her. Outgoing Municipal Commissioner Ramanath Jha and Additional Municipal Commissioner Deepak Kapoor also participated in the meeting with the Mayor and supported the demands made by the Officers' Association.

Besides pressing for the formation of a coordination committee and framing of the code of conduct, the Association demanded that all the elected office-bearers at the PMC should issue a press statement condemning the ill-treatment meted out to Ghodke.

The strike was called off when the Mayor Andekar, Deputy Mayor Bhagwan Kshirsagar, Opposition leader Avinash Salve and standing committee chairman Ramesh Bodke issued a press statement to the effect.