Heated exchanges between the Congress and the BJP in the MCD, as they enter the election year, saw a special budget meeting of the MCD House (for the year 2011-12) being adjourned for the first time ever. The Congress mounted a vociferous protest accusing the BJP of making false announcement pertaining to `50 lakhs additional allocation being made to the councillors leading to adjournment of meeting within 50 minutes.
The BJP councillors, led by state BJP chief Vijender Gupta, marched to the residence of lieutenant governor Tejendra Khanna crying foul and demanding action. They described the whole episode as a “constitutional crisis” maintaining that in a special budget meeting no other business should be taken up. Both the parties also gave “dalit” twist to the happenings. The BJP blamed the Congress for disrupting the House meeting because the chairman of the MCD’s standing committee, Yogender Chandolia, who was to make the budget speech, was a dalit. But the Congress said the BJP itself did not want the session to pass off without a hitch to “embarrass their dalit colleague”. Mr Chandolia said that Leader of the Opposition Jai Kishan Sharma has been intentionally disrupting the meetings chaired by him because he was a dalit.
Earlier, as the meeting convened, Satbir Sharma of Congress got up even before Mr Chandolia could begin his budget speech. The Congress councillor pointed out that on December 13, 2010, Mr Chandolia had made an announcement, in his first budget speech that `50 lakhs additional allocation have been made for the councillors to carry out development work in their areas. But when the councillors approached the civic body officials, they were told that there were no such funds. “Why wasn’t the administration taken in confidence before the announcement was made?,” asked Mr Satbir Sharma.