Chandigarh (Gurpreet Singh): In a dramatic turn at today’s General House session of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, councillors from the AAP and Congress launched into a protest by tearing pages from the minutes of the previous meeting, triggering uproar across the chamber.
As chaos erupted, Mayor Harpreet Kaur Babla ordered the suspension of Senior Deputy Mayor Jasbir Singh Bunty, Deputy Mayor Taruna Mehta, and AAP councillor Prem Lata. The meeting was immediately halted and adjourned for ten minutes amid shouts and confusion.
Once the Mayor and officials were out of the chamber, Bunty, backed by other dissident councillors, convened a parallel session in the Well of the House. Claiming a semblance of authority, he retorted to the ruling party’s narrative and lambasted the administration’s treatment of municipal employees.
The flashpoint began earlier when BJP councillors hailed Mayor Babla’s recent women empowerment award from Moscow. Opposition members seized the moment to allege harassment of MC staff and broader administrative failings, overwhelming the praises with chants and allegations.
Mayor Babla denounced the disturbance as “insulting to citizens and women of the city,” insisting that her award was a collective tribute to all residents, not a personal accolade.
Councillor Gurpreet Singh Gabi raised a separate firestorm by questioning the suspension of staff in the sanitation department over alleged dereliction of duty. He argued that if accountability was needed, it should start from senior officials—calling it unfair to penalize lower-rung workers alone.
Amid all this, Councillor Saurabh Joshi spotlighted serious questions regarding the MC’s horticulture waste operations and the management of over 100 waste pits in city green belts. He demanded an independent probe and warned of staging a sit-in if no report surfaced by the next meeting.
“The misuse of public funds cannot go unchecked,” Joshi declared. “Either the Commissioner acts or I will protest outside MC.”
Tuesday’s proceedings, marred by spectacle and confrontation, exposed the fracture lines running through Chandigarh’s civic politics and cast doubt on the corporation’s ability to function cooperatively.
