Maintaining a distance from prevailing quarrel between Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC), the Minister of Housing and Urban Development CP Singh said today that both the parties needed to maintain ‘gravity’. Calling whatever had been happening within the civic body as ‘unfortunate’ and ‘avoidable’, Singh said that the Department was taking measures to bring the entire tussle between the power centres of the civic body to an end sooner than later.
“It is not that we are not aware about whatever has been happening, or that we don’t care. We actually care. I have asked both Asha lakra (Mayor) and Sanjeev Vijayvargeeya (Deputy Mayor) to maintain gravity, because the tussle, that also seemingly for nothing, would lead no one anywhere other than earning bad name among people,” said the Minister.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development happens to be the parent department of RMC. He said that he had conversations with both the leaders personally, and that he asked both of them not to fight like this. Even the ruling party in State has started sensing damage caused by both the leaders in civic body. “It is something we didn’t expect from our leaders, because both lakra and Vijayvargeeya are the dedicated party leaders. But their internal tussle has started turning ugly, and the party is worried over it,” said a senior local office-bearer of the BJP on Saturday. He said that there was a party meeting expected soon after the Christmas.
Three board meetings of RMC have already been postponed within two months only due to a proxy-war of showing constitutional power to each other by Mayor Asha lakra and Municipal Commissioner Prashant Kumar, who has been allegedly backed fully by Deputy Mayor Sanjeev Vijayvargeeya. The Mayor, meanwhile, has sent around half a dozen show-cause notices to Kumar within past two months over a number of issues, all indirectly related to allowing the maintenance work of some specified street lights under RMC area to a company called Bright Neon. The city which will undergo a cleanliness inspection in less than a fortnight to earn some respect in the list of cleanest cities of India is destined to suffer miserably on almost each parameter of cleanliness and facilities being provided by the civic body. However, the Deputy Mayor has kept on rejecting charges of public sufferings. “Apart from board meeting being cancelled or postponed at three occasions, I don’t see any public work is stalled anywhere. And I am not in fight with anyone,” said Vijayvargeeya.
Though the Mayor remained unreachable on the day, she has already on several occasions denied any tussle with anyone, saying that she was fighting for betterment of RMC.