Gaya mayor Vibha Devi and her deputy Akhauri Onkarnath (left) have an altercation during the standing committee meeting of the civic body on Monday. Picture by Suman

Councillors in Gaya have moved a resolution demanding the ouster of mayor Vibha Devi, alleging financial irregularities.

As many as 33 councillors signed the resolution at a meeting of the civic body on Monday demanding Vibha’s ouster. The mayor, however, called the meeting illegal. “According to the Bihar Municipal Act, 2007, a no-confidence motion cannot be brought against the mayor before two years of a full five-year term,” said Vibha.

The ward number 5 councillor, Vibha, had sworn in as the mayor on June 9 last year.

Sources said the resolution was a fallout of the bickering between Vibha and deputy mayor Akhauri Onkarnath alias Mohan Shrivastava, who was present at the meeting but did not sign the resolution.

Vinod Kumar Mandal, ward 4 councillor, said the members had spontaneously signed on the resolution.

On April 13, a group of 36 councillors had submitted an application to Gaya Municipal Corporation commissioner Dhaneshwar Chaudhary, mayor and deputy mayor to hold a meeting of the civic body board. In the application, they accused Vibha of financial irregularities and corruption and said her husband, Indradev Yadav, dominated the civic body’s functioning.

Eighteen councillors had again on April 23 submitted an application to the commissioner, accusing the mayor of durachaar (malpractice) and awaidh dhandha (illegal activity), and requested Chaudhary to hold a meeting.

Vibha refuted the charges levelled by the councillors. She said: “The councillors are good but the deputy mayor is misleading them for his vested interests to grab contract of the civic body schemes.”

Another councillor, Laljee Prasad, also claimed Monday’s meeting was illegal. “There was no signature on the notice served to the councillors for the meeting,” he said.