Greater Chennai Corporation's council applauds Jayalalithaa's Guinness' re-election
Mayor asked councillors to submit within two days, a list of all civic works stopped due to the enforcement of model code of conduct in the city.
Chennai: The Greater Chennai Corporation’s council re-convened after a gap of nearly three months to applaud Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa’s return to power with Mayor Saidai S. Duraisamy leading the way. Duraisamy, who took offence to what he said was biased media campaign against AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalithaa in the run up to the elections, said that the Chief Minister defeated 10 opponents to return to the seat of power.
“DMK-Congress, the DMDK-PWF-TMC combine, the PMK which had announced its Chief Minister candidate as far back as a year ago and together with these characters, a few media houses. These were honourable Amma’s opponents.
They made all wrong claims and spread so many false rumours. All of them stooped to a never before seen level of low to spread their propaganda. My god, what sort of Goebbels-esque techniques did they employ...,” the Mayor trailed off.
When the barbs kept flowing, the DMK councillors heckled the Mayor for what they believed was time wasting as the city’s issues were not being discussed by a council that had re-convened after three months. To this, the Mayor responded, “Don’t tempt me. You (DMK councilors) only counter me if I have slandered your party or made wrong claims. If I start to talk bad, then it won’t end in a nice way,” he said.
Later, the Mayor asked councillors to submit within two days, a list of all civic works stopped due to the enforcement of model code of conduct in the city.
“Amma has ordered to finish all pending work on a war-footing,” the mayor noted.
When it was put to him by DMK ward 92 councillor Neelakandan, that the corporation, despite five years of AIADMK governance, had failed to integrate the education and revenue departments of the extended areas under the Greater Chennai Corporation, Duraisamy said that the delay was due to the mistakes made by the DMK regime prior to 2011. “But the processes are all in motion and the integration will happen soon,” he said, without specifying a time-frame.