Based in the labour-dominated Limbayat area, Kusamma reportedly promised women in the locality a house each if they gave her Rs 220 per head. More than 1000 women -- mostly bidi workers and textile workers' wives -- signed up for the `Bidi Kamdar Vasahat Yojana', which doesn't exist either in the State government or in the Surat Municipal Corporation's books.

Moreover, though Kusamma signed receipts for the money, they acknowledged payment of Rs 200, instead of the Rs 220 paid. Copies of the receipt are available with Express Newsline.

While Kusamma's brother claimed on Wednesday that the money had been collected for ``women's welfare'', the councillor, when she was finally tracked down on Thursday, said, ``The idea behind collecting the money was to construct a pucca house for the bidi-workers, all of whom operate from their homes. The house will solve a lot of their problems.''

Asked why the receipts acknowledged Rs 20 less than the actual amount paid, the councillor's brother told Express Newsline that it was to go towards the expenses of the local Shakti Mahila Mandal ``only whose members signed up for the scheme''.

However, neither Kusamma, who is also chairperson of the SMC's slum improvement committee, nor her brother could explain why the receipts mentioned a `housing colony' instead of the single house they had in mind.

Also, inquiries revealed that there were less than 40 bidi workers in the locality, while more than 1000 signed up for the `scheme'.

Others, too, seemed to have been asking the same questions, as by the time Express Newsline reached Kusamma on Thursday afternoon, more than half-a-dozen women had asked for a refund. ``I have returned the cash to seven of them'', the councillor said, indicating that she had got the wind up.

``Some of my partymen, too, have given me a dressing down for signing those vouchers'', she confessed. Accusing political opponents of spreading rumours that ``I'm out to cheat the women and decamp with the money'', Kusamma told this correspondent that if her integrity was in doubt, she was ready to return the cash.

``The councillor concerned will have to explain her action'', said Mayor Savitaben Sharda when Express Newsline contacted her. ``The party will inquire into the matter and meet those who have paid the money''.

Taking up the cudgels against Kusamma's alleged fraud are her fellow councillor, who told Express Newsline that he smelt a rat when some people complained to him, and a leftist organisation called Naujavan Bharat Sabha.

In a memorandum submitted to the district collector and the police commissioner, the NBS said, ``The entire exercise smacks of foul play. There is no advertisement, no literature, not even official documents.'' It threatened to launch an agitation if the authorities did not act within seven days and said that if the exercise was not genuine, the authorities should initiate criminal proceedings against her.