By Violet Pereira, Team Mangalorean

Mangalore : The City Corporation monthly review meeting held at the Zilla Panchayat Office on July 31, turned out to be like a ' Fish Market ' atmosphere with members present raising their voices during arguments.

The meeting was held to discuss the following issues on the agenda :

• Income Tax and Appeals,
• Public health, education and social justice,
• City project and development
• Statement of account. 

Mayor Gulzar Banu, Deputy Mayor Amitakala and Commissioner Harish Kumar chaired the meeting.  As soon as the meeting began, the ZP office become a war zone of heated words between members of different  parties. Jayanthi a independent candidate, recalling the recent incident of Morning Mist Home Stay resort attacks, called the Sangha Parivar members as " goons ".

Unable to digest the accusation made by Jayanthi, the BJP corporators fired back at her. When another Independent corporator Mariamma Thomas took sides with Jayanthi, the BJP corporators took on Mariamma too. One of the BJP corporator tagged Jayanthi's community as "Naxal".  Accusations and counter accusations between each other continued until meeting breaktime.. 

After the break, when the meeting resumed former Mayor Shankar Bhat said that, we cannot tolerate tagging of the Sangh Parivar as goons by the Independent corporator ,we need an explanation and apology  from Jayanthi. Until then we will not allow the meeting to continue.  They said if the Sangh Parivar members are" goons" as portrayed by Jayanthi, then CPI(M), is a main source of naxalism and murder. If the Sangh Parivar are" goons ", then we would not have been here, we would have involved in illegal activities. We want Jayathi to apologize before everyone. We have many other issues to discuss but if Jayanthi doesn't apologize, we will not allow the meeting to proceed, said Shanker Bhat.

Jayanthi in her reply said that in CPI(M), Congress, JD(S) and BJP there are good and bad people, I did not tag the BJP as "goons ".  But the ruling members tagged CPI(M) members as Naxalites involved in murder and theft. I will not apologize for any reason, because I did not say anything wrong. I said that only the people who attacked and molested the students are goons. If they want me to apologize let the opposition too apologize for their statement, she said. Further she said that the funds which were sanctioned for "Kuteera Baghya", as to be collected to use for someone's house needs, we are not getting the amount directly from the Mangalore City Corporation, she accused.

BJP corporator Sudheer Shetty speaking reacting to the "Goons" accusation from Jayanthi said that we all members of BJP will see that Jayanthi will not get any funds for "Kuteera Baghya" project. According to Kuteera Baghya scheme, each corporator gets Rs 15,000 to repair/renovate 8 houses of poor families. In case some wards have no houses to be repaired/renovated under this scheme, then the funds will be utilized in other wards under the same scheme. The BJP corporators of some wards had given the Kuteera Baghya Projects scheme amount to Jayanthi, which Sudheer Shetty wants to put a stop to it.

In response congress corporators appealed that, "The poor people who avail some benefits from Kuteera Baghya must not be withheld or stopped, just because as to what happened during this meeting".  Many congress corporators wanted to discuss about the increase in Malaria, dengue and other viral diseases in the city.  But the Mangalore City Corporation members were not ready to stop their arguments which were at times like the scene you experience at a ' fish market the City'. Expecting the situation to worsen Mayor Gulzar Banu adjourned the meeting until further notice.