Chennai: The recent monsoon rains have left the Chennai roads battered and bruised beyond recognition. While motorists are struggling in their everyday commute, the political blame game has started.
Three mayors are slugging it out in the political arena as former mayors M.K. Stalin and M. Subramanian join issue with the mayor Saidai S. Duraisamy.
On Monday, Mr Subramanian challenged Mr Duraisamy to an ‘open debate’ before the media on the state of the monsoon arrangements and also compare projects completed during the DMK and AIADMK regimes.
“The public are suffering, it is visible with newspapers carrying pictures of potholes and clogged drains, but the mayor is interested only in politics,” Mr Subramanian told DC. He said in the corporation council meeting last week, the incumbent leveled charges against the DMK mayors without any facts and figures.
And to suppress the public views on the battered roads and other monsoon grievances that were put forth by DMK councillors, the mayor had them evicted en masse, Mr Subramaniam said.
“I have issued a statement in this regard and want Duraisamy to come out in the open, debate the monsoon woes of the people and supplement his allegations. The mayor can fix the date and venue, as per his wish at the earliest and I am waiting, he added.
Mr Subramanian’s statement comes as a counter to Mr Duraisamy’s allegations that his predecessors had misused their camp offices by spending from corporation funds for diesel and staff wages. Last week in the council meeting, Mr Duraisamy had it recorded that the previous mayors misused power and failed to upgrade the infrastructure.
Responding on Sunday to the DMK leader Stalin’s charge that the corporation has become inactive and that the officers were avoiding interaction even with the elected representatives, Mr Duraisamy told Jaya TV in an interview that during their stints as mayor, both Stalin and Subramanian “spent peanuts to develop city and only looted the corporation.”
Mr Stalin is also keeping up the pressure on the civic body. He has opened a ‘public grievance cell’ in his constituency. “It’s time civic officials scaled up their work. There has to be more inspections and patch work undertaken so as to minimise the monsoon effect,” says R. Govindaraj, joint general secretary, Exnora.
