Town Hall,Mangaluru : BJP workers staged a protest in front of Mangaluru City Corporation on Monday, demanding that the Town Hall renovation works be resumed. They reiterated that they will not allow the monthly meetings of the council to take place unless the works continued.

They also demanded the posting of a regular Commissioner to the civic body as the post of Commissioner fell vacant after the transfer of Hephsiba Rani Korlapati a week ago.

Addressing a gathering, Sudhir Shetty Kannur, leader of the opposition BJP in the corporation council, said that the Town Hall was closed for renovation on September 19, 2014. The renovation works were taken up to get the hall ready for its golden jubilee celebrations in December, 2014. Now, the renovation works have come to a standstill due to internal differences among district in-charge Minister B. Ramanath Rai, Congress MLAs of the district and Congress councillors in the civic body, he said.

He said that the closure of the Town Hall for over eight months has affected several artistes and organisations, as they do not have a proper venue to present programmes.

The ruling Congress was not bothered about addressing this issue, he said.

Referring to the postings of Commissioners to the civic body, he said that after the Congress took over the reigns of the Corporation, it has transferred three Commissioners in about one-and-half years.

Some of the Congress leaders recently said that when Ms. Korlapati, an IAS officer, who was transferred a week ago, was the Commissioner for five months, no development works took place. In that case why did the Congress transfer two Commissioners who had been posted to the civic body before her , he questioned.

He said that Ms. Korlapati had brought reforms in administration.