Stormy scenes witnessed at GVMC council meeting

BJP corporator G. Kavitha suspended for making derogatory comments against civic officials and ruling party corporators

Agitations, sit-ins and heated arguments between the ruling YSRCP corporators and the opposition marked the council meeting of the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) on Friday.

For the first time since the formation of the council, the Mayor suspended a corporator and asked the Marshals to escort her out of the council hall forcibly. The incident occurred during Zero Hour.

During her speech, Ward 48 corporator (BJP) G. Kavitha lashed out at GVMC Commissioner P. Raja Babu and the civic officials, accusing them of deliberately not taking up any development works in her ward. She alleged that despite several representations, none of the officials bothered to provide even basic amenities in her ward. “I am feeling humiliated when interacting with the people of my ward who voted for me as I am failing to fulfil the promises. The GVMC officials are misusing public money,” Ms. Kavitha thundered, and uttered an unparliamentary statement in a fit of anger.

This prompted a unanimous uproar from the other corporators who demanded that Ms. Kavitha retract her statement. Mayor G. Hari Venkata Kumari then asked Ms. Kavitha to apologise to the GVMC staff. However, the latter steadfastly refused to do so, prompting the Mayor to suspend her from the council meeting and directing the woman marshals present in the council hall to escort Ms. Kavitha out.

Earlier, during Zero Hour, corporators from various parties complained about the poor sanitation, lack of adequate sanitation staff and safety gear, and irregular functioning of Clean Andhra Pradesh (CLAP) vehicles in some wards.

Ward 69 corporator K. Govinda Reddy spoke about the pig menace in his ward, which he said was creating a severe inconvenience to the residents and was also leading to road accidents. He also alleged that most of the streetlights in his ward were not functional.

Ward 60 corporator P.V. Suresh said that the sanitation staff lacked basic gear such as gloves and masks and cleaning equipment. He highlighted the plight faced by people due to lack of adequate sanitation staff. A number of TDP corporators complained about non-implementation of protocol during the GVMC programmes in wards.