A meeting of the Vijayawada Municipal Council on Wednesday, witnessed high drama after a scuffle broke out, with corporators from the TDP and YSRCP verbally attacking each other.
The entire row started after a few YSRCP corporators turned up wearing the scarves of their party, which TDP members objected.
The Hindu reported that the TDP members allegedly passed comments against YSRCP chief YS Jaganmohan Reddy, which irked the other corporators. As a verbal duel broke out, TDP members moved a motion to suspend the YSRCP corporators.
Informing them that members should not carry their respective party symbols as per the rules, Vijayawada Mayor Koneru Sridhar suspended four corporators from the YSRCP.
However, YSRCP corporator B Vijaykumar protested against the move, and demanded that the exact rule spelling this out, be shown to them publicly.
“Some of the members have been wearing party scarves for the past three years. All of a sudden when we were mounting pressure on another issue, ruling party members raised objection over our scarves. This was only to divert the topic and save their skin,” YSRCP floor leader B. Punyaseela told The Hindu later.
They also staged a protest outside the meeting venue after being suspended.
Meanwhile, the VMC meeting also discussed various sanitation issues that were plaguing colonies in Vijayawada.
“Lack of monitoring from sanitary inspectors and workers at the division level has led to poor sanitation in the city. Door-to-door garbage collection will be taken up by sanitation workers on war footing to remove garbage on the streets. Cleaning silt in the drains is also another problem for the corporation over the years,” VMC chief medical officer M Gopi Naik was quoted as saying.
“I have been asking the assistant medical and health officers to go into the field and get reports of sanitation work on a daily basis but no one does it. What is wrong in getting an acknowledgement from the corporator?” the Mayor asked.