Mangaluru: Senior BJP councillors, including the Leader of the Opposition in the council, walked out of the development committee meeting of the Mangaluru City Corporation Council presided over by Mayor Bhaskar K. on Monday accusing the latter of not inviting two city MLAs to the meeting intentionally.

Addressing reporters later, Leader of the Opposition in the council Premananda Shetty, who walked out along with the former Mayor Ganesh Hosabettu and Sudhir Shetty Kannur, alleged that the Mayor was not inviting D. Vedavyasa Kamath, MLA, Mangaluru City South, and Y. Bharat Shetty, MLA, Mangaluru City North, as they are from the BJP.

He said that earlier all Mayors used to invite MLAs from the City South and City North segments to the committee meeting as their suggestions held good for planning and taking decisions on projects for the city. The City South Assembly constituency comprised 38 wards of the corporation. The remaining 22 wards of the corporation was under the City North Assembly constituency.

The Mayor had convened only two meetings, including Monday’s meeting, of the committee since he took over in March 2018.

He said that prior to this year’s Assembly elections, the two Assembly constituencies had MLAs elected from the Congress. Hence, they were being invited to the committee meeting by all earlier Mayors as the council is led by the Congress. After the MLAs from the BJP got elected from the two constituencies five months ago, the Mayor has stopped inviting them to the committee meeting, Mr. Shetty said.

He said that the Mayor has justified his action by stating that the MLAs are free to call meetings of officials of the corporation on their own to give any directions.

If MLAs did so, it would only confuse officials and would not help the corporation in taking forward projects in the pipeline and under implementation. Hence, decisions would have to be taken jointly by the MLAs and the corporation for the betterment of city, he said.

Commissioner Mohammed Nazir has said that it is up to the Mayor to take the decision on calling MLAs as the Mayor heads the committee.

Mr. Shetty said that earlier all members of the committee, including the Mayors, used to wait for the MLAs to commence the meeting. But now they have been kept out due to political reasons. It is not correct on the part of the Mayor.

He said that the committee did not have legal approval. However, it was constituted a decade ago to discuss projects threadbare before taking them to the council for further discussion and approval.