Patna: Mayor Sita Sahu and deputy mayor Vinay Kumar Pappu are not getting along well and insiders believe that it may spiral out of control and lead to a rift that could hamper civic works.
The deputy mayor is BJP party worker, and Sahu was the NDA-backed candidate in the mayoral elections.
Pappu has raised questions on Sahu's style of functioning saying that the first lady mayor of the city is ignoring the ward councillors and is working against the rulebook.
Sahu, on the other hand, says the deputy mayor is creating hurdles in civic works and has a negative attitude towards development projects of the civic body.
According to Pappu, during a recent foundation laying ceremony of the Bihar Rajya Jal Parshad, mayor Sahu chose to sit with the MLAs and other ministers on the dais even when the councillors were not offered any seat.
Pappu alleged that the councillors who took part in the event were angry as they had to sit among the commoners while Sahu seemed least bothered about it.
Pappu also questioned how Sahu could directly write a letter to deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi for the appointment of the controller of municipal finance and accounts. Sahu had written to Modi on April 12.
Pappu said the mayor went against the norms by directly writing to the deputy chief minister and she should have first apprised the urban development and housing minister about this.
"The biggest irony is that the mayor held a review meeting of various schemes of 2016-17 and 2017-18 financial year on April 19 in which I was not invited. How can such a meeting be conducted without the deputy mayor? Does this not indicate that the mayor is working on her own will? I got to know about the meeting when I reached the office late in the evening that day," Pappu told The Telegraph.
He said during the Jal Parishad event on April 18, many councillors did not receive invitation.
"BRJP, Bihar Urban Infrastructure Development Corporation (BUIDCo) and District Urban Development Authority (DUDA) look after many PMC projects but after the project gets over, its maintenance is taken care by the PMC and the sitting councillors. How can a BRJP, DUDA or BUIDCo programme be held without a councillor? And if they are present in any of their programmes, which is related to the corporation project, the councillors have to be given their due respect but the mayor madam chose to participate in such events even when the councillors were not paid any respect," added Pappu.
Sahu on denied the allegations levelled against her by her deputy.
"I got to know that the deputy mayor has problems with me writing directly to the deputy chief minister over the appointment of controller of municipal finance and accounts. He should first check the facts. I had written separate letters to urban development and housing minister Suresh Sharma, department principal secretary Chaitanya Prasad and deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi. A copy of the letter which was sent to the principal secretary of the urban development and housing department was also marked to PMC commissioner Keshav Ranjan Prasad," she said.
She added: "As far as the matter of ignoring the councillors is concerned, this is also not true. During the Parishad event, councillors who were present were invited on the dais and were presented a bouquet. The deputy mayor wants to create hurdles in civic works. He wants to create issues between me and the councillors but he won't succeed."
