Congress slams MC for putting defeated leaders’ names on stones
Saturday, 16/05/2015
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AMRITSAR: Stating that despite the Supreme Court’s ban on displaying pictures of chief ministers and deputy chief ministers and other ministers on advertisements, Congress councillors have charged the Amritsar municipal corporation (MC) with going overboard with its expenses in installing costly foundation stones and “violating the laws” and putting defeated leaders’ names on them “unconstitutionally”.
They urged chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, local bodies minister Anil Joshi and Amritsar deputy commissioner Ravi Bhagat to initiate action in this regard.
Addressing mediapersons, leader of the opposition in the MC House Raj Kanwal Preet Pal Singh Lucky said the name of a defeated leader from the Amritsar Central constituency, who had lost in the Vidhan Sabha polls, was being featured ‘unconstitutionally’ on the foundation stones, while the MC and the Amritsar Improvement Trust (AIT) authorities turning a blind eye to the violation.
“It is illegal to feature the name of a defeated leader of a party on foundation stones that have been put up by the MC by spending government’s money,” said Lucky.
He added that installing a foundation stone cost no less than `15,000. “Already the employees are reeling under poor financial condition of the MC, as many of them have not been given salaries of the previous month,” he said.
“Besides, the MC has no fund for the development of the city. The money which is being spent in this manner could be utilised to cover open manholes, patch up broken roads and meet the other needs of the city,” Lucky said.
