Bhagalpur: Bhagalpur Municipal Corporation (BMC) mayor Seema Sha has blamed town commissioner S.B. Meena of "playing politics" while falsely implicating two ward councillors over the violence on Wednesday evening in which the IAS officer was allegedly manhandled.

The flare-up occurred after Vinay Gupta, husband of Sandhya Gupta, the councillor of ward 41, and councillors of wards 21 and 36 - Sanjay Sinha and Pramod Lal, respectively - and their associates attacked the BMC office on Wednesday evening. Meena came out of his chamber after hearing the commotion, but was allegedly manhandled by Gupta.

The commissioner, an IAS officer of the 2014 batch, was saved by the BMC staff, who have been on strike since Wednesday evening against the violence and demanding action against the councillors.

Late on Thursday evening, mayor Sha convened a meeting of councillors. After the meeting, she criticised commissioner Meena and accused him of engaging in "nasty politics" while "falsely implicating" councillors Sinha and Lal. She also backed Gupta, the main accused in the case. "All false allegations were levelled by the town commissioner. His mobile phone records should be checked to know the call details," Sha said.

Meena was not available for comment as he was in Patna for a meeting.

Divisional commissioner, Bhagalpur, Rajesh Kumar said: "The incident was unfortunate but our priority is to restore the functioning of BMC immediately."

On Friday, mayor Sha and deputy mayor Rajesh Verma sat down with the striking staff members. Sha cited the garbage piling up in the city to appeal to them to call off their strike.

But the agitating staff members refused to call off their strike unless the accused persons are arrested and removed from their posts.