The general meeting of Raipur Municipal Corporation (RMC) on Friday witnessed chaos and disagreement over naming of places and monuments after Jeeram valley martyrs in the State.
It may be recalled that on May 25 last year, Maoists had launched a bloody attack on a Congress convoy which killed many of the prominent state-level Congress leaders besides others in Jeeram valley of Sukma district in Bastar in the State. Mayor Dr Kiranmayee Nayak and Congress corporators tried to garner support for acknowledging some places and monuments of the city to be named after martyred Congress leaders.
“The leaders sacrificed their lives in the Naxal attack. They are martyrs and are not bounded to any political party. Keeping the names of places and monuments after them will be a tribute paid to them” the Congress corporators gave reasons behind their proposal.The proposals included naming the under-construction international swimming pool after late Nandkumar Patel and the library, being constructed next to it, after late VC Shukla.
They also proposed to name the garden, being constructed near Sanskrit College, as Jeeram Valley and the road, connecting the Science College to Ring Road via Goal Chowk, Rohinipuram after late Mahendra Karma. However, the Opposition BJP and independent corporators jointly rejected the ruling party’s proposals by voting against with majority.
In voting, the proposal of naming the international swimming pool got 30 votes in favor and 34 votes in against, while it was a tie on the proposal of keeping the library’s name, with each side got 32 votes. Following this, RMC speaker Sanjay Shrivastava used his vote to reject the proposal. Similary, the proposal of naming the garden, being constructed near Sanskrit College, got 31 votes in favour and 33 votes in against while keeping the road, connecting the Science College to Ring Road, got 30 votes in favour and 34 votes in against.
However, the corporators unanimously agreed on the proposal of naming the garden, situated in front of RMC building, after late VC Shukla and also erecting his statue there. The proposal of naming the square situated near Banjariwale Baba to Oliya Chowk and replacing the name of Katora Talab to Sant Kanwar Ram Nagar were passed.
The proposal of increasing number of wards from 70 to 100 could not get garner enough votes of the corporators and thus was rejected. Discussions on many other issues were also held in the meeting.