In the ongoing feud between the Mayor and the Commissioner of Ballari City Corporation Preeti Gehlot, the Mayor, the Deputy Mayor, Standing Committee members and councillors staged a protest against the officer on Thursday after they waited for an hour for a meeting and when, later, Ms. Gehlot started the meeting in the absence of the Mayor and the Council members.
Ms. Gehlot had called a meeting at 11 a.m. to discuss various issues, including plastic ban in the city.
Mayor Rajeshwari, Deputy Mayor M. Balan, Standing Committee members and councillors walked out of the meeting hall as Ms. Gehlot did not turn up for the meeting even after noon.
The Corporation Commissioner, who arrived after noon, started the meeting without informing or inviting the Mayor, who was waiting in her chamber.
However, Ms. Rajeshwari and the councillors refused to attend the meeting and staged a protest against the Commissioner’s “behaviour”.
“We were waiting for Ms. Gehlot for more than an hour and now, she, though late by an hour, started the meeting without bringing it to our knowledge. I was sitting in my chamber [Mayor’s] and the Commissioner neither informed me nor invited me to the meeting and it is a disrespectful act,” Ms. Rajeshwari said.
The Mayor also said that the Commissioner had on several occasions in the past refused to go to the Mayor’s chamber, while, in turn, asking Ms. Rajeshwari to go to her [Ms. Gehlot’s] chamber.
The Mayor also said that there is lack of coordination as far as the Commissioner is concerned. Ms. Gehlot holds a series of meetings with officials but fails to give update of the developments to the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor, she added.
