DIBRUGARH, Sept 27 - Eleven out of the sixteen BJP Ward Commissioners of Dibrugarh Municipal Board (DMB) have moved a no-confidence motion against the sitting DMB chairman Soma Chakravorty.
This is the second such dissent among the BJP Ward Commissioners in the past 17 months. The previous DMB chairman Anuradha Dey was ousted in the similar fashion in April, 2017 by the BJP Ward Commissioners.
The eleven signatories are Anuradha Dey, Manik Ghosh, Dr Saikat Patra, Jugananda Sensowa, Bajrang K Mittal, Amit Singh, Arpana Das Shah, Rachana Jain, Naushaba Rahman, Shampa Dey and Mamun Gogoi Mitra. The Congress has five elected members in the DMB consisting of 22 Wards.
Describing the sitting chairman �autocratic�, the signatories stated in a letter that the Ward Commissioners are not consulted for any decisions of the municipality in contravention to the norms and guidelines of the Assam Municipal Act 1956. The rebelling Ward Commissioners said that certain lobby was actually running the affairs of the Municipal Board. They said that the DMB chairman failed to convene the official board meeting as per the provision of the Assam Municipal Act 1956 in the last 17 months.
The Ward Commissioners also alleged that DMB chairman was taking all financial decisions of the municipality all alone, without consulting the elected members.
The DMB chairman has also been blamed for not providing financial details of revenue and expenditure of these months, not implementing social welfare schemes, not checking corruption particularly in the departments of sanitary, hoarding, allotment of certain markets etc. and failing in cleaning the city.
While some party leaders tried to downplay with the development by simply stating that they are fed up with the internal squabble, some in the party ranks feel that such dissent could cost the party, in the ensuing 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
