'Letter bomb' triggers noisy scenes at North Corpn meet

A ‘letter bomb’ figured at the North Corporation’s standing committee meeting on Wednesday. Ruckus ensued in the meeting after an opposition councillor tabled a letter from someone alleging that BJP legislators are working in connivance with the parking mafia in the city.

Prithvi Singh Rathore, a Congress councillor from Peera Garhi, raised the issue of illegal parking lots under the limits of North Corporation.

“Of the newly issued tenders of the 45 sites under the civic agency, 16 contractors have stopped paying money. This can only happen if contractors, councillors and officials are working together to line their pockets,” said Rathore. “I got this letter from an individual by post. It says that two BJP councillors are hand in glove with parking mafia.”

The remark by the councillor created chaos at the meeting. “This is totally unacceptable. Nobody should be allowed to make defamatory remarks on the basis of some anonymous letter. The opposition councillor must be stopped from taking the names of the BJP leaders mentioned in the letter,” said Rajesh Bhatia, a councillor from Rajender Nagar.

Amid the clamour, a BJP councillor from Karol Bagh, Yogender Chandolia, said, “The letter aims to target me.” “In the last standing committee meeting, I supported prosecution of the defaulter contractors, so I am being targetted by these goons. I have also got two letters referring to officials of the North Corporations who are working in tandem with parking mafia,” added Chandolia.

Leader of Opposition Mukesh Goel said that such matters should be looked into. “Even if the letters are anonymous they should be probed. They might lead the civic agency to the root cause of this problem,” said Goel.

To this the chairman of the standing committee Mohan Prasad Bhardwaj replied, “These are letter bombs meant to disrupt the functioning of the standing committee meeting. I have also got such letters; we should not get digressed and continue with development work.”

North Corporation Commissioner P K Gupta said the civic agency is carrying out a survey to verify the details of the contractors of all 90 sites under its jurisdiction.