Stay on KMC House, Abhishek notices pointers to power shift

Kolkata: The Trinamool-run KMC board was on the verge of a crisis after the municipal secretary, Swapan Kumar Kundu, on Thursday postponed the KMC House, where policy decisions were taken. Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee has convened a meeting of party councillors in the KMC on Friday.According to the KMC Act, the civic board chairperson gives consent to the monthly meeting (KMC House) to pass policy decisions that are taken up in mayor-in-council meetings. The municipal secretary convenes the KMC House on behalf of the chairperson. If the chairperson feels it is necessary to postpone a meeting, the municipal secretary is directed to do so. But Trinamool MP Mala Roy, the KMC chairperson, said she was not consulted about the KMC House postponement. "According to rules, the municipal secretary must seek my consent before announcing such a decision," she said. An official said the municipal secretary was first averse to the postponement of the House but took the decision following instructions from a senior state municipal affairs department official. Within an hour, Kundu was shifted to Bikash Bhavan.On Monday, the mayor-in-council meeting was also postponed.According to a KMC official, the serving of notices to properties, purportedly owned or co-owned by Trinamool general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, by the civic buildings and assessment departments was a pointer to the flux in KMC. The crisis deepened on Thursday after the House postponement note from the municipal secretary till further order. Within an hour of the notice, the municipal secretary was transferred to the state gazetteers department at Bikash Bhavan as an officer-on-special duty. Kishore Kumar Biswas, deputy secretary, East Burdwan zilla parishad, will be the new KMC secretary.A worried mayor, Firhad Hakim, on Thursday called municipal commissioner Smita Pandey to his chamber and expressed his concern. Sources in the mayor's office said Hakim tried to impress upon the municipal commissioner the importance of the monthly meeting, without which the board would be unable to pass any policy decisions and would lead to an impasse, hampering the proper functioning of the board. "If we fail to hold the House once a month, the functioning of the civic board will cease and the board will become defunct," Hakim reportedly told some of the councillors who had assembled at his chamber on Thursday afternoon. Senior KMC officials expressed surprise at the civic board's decision to send tax, ownership and building plan violation notices to Trinamool national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, keeping the mayor in the dark. "Executive engineers were asked to paste notices on the properties either owned or co-owned by Banerjee, his family or his company, which is a rarity in the history of the civic body," said a KMC official.