Nagpur: Amid the war of words between ruling and Opposition parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday boycotted the General Body Meeting (GBM) of Zilla Parishad (ZP) conducted online.
The opposition members accused the ruling side of conducting the meeting online to evade probing questions, the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) termed the opposition stand as ‘double-standard’ and a ‘stunt’. The BJP members, led by Anil Nidhan, Leader of Opposition, came to ZP Headquarters wearing black face-mask and black ribbon on the sleeves. They raised slogans against the ruling Congress-NCP combine. “Had the administration and ruling dispensation sent a proposal to the Government for conducting regular general body meetings, there won’t be any need for holding it online,” Nidhan alleged. He accused the ruling combine of having no answers to the probing questions that the opposition had planned to raise in the meeting. “We will not sign the register of the meeting and urge the District Collector to declare the meeting as invalid,” he said.
On the other hand, the ZP President RashmiBarve told media persons after the meeting that all the resolutions included in the agenda of the meeting have been passed. She termed the opposition stand as an attempt to ‘project itself as hero’. “The meeting was held after 3 months and the opposition members should have participated in the online meeting actively to raise the issues concerning respective circles. But, BJP harmed the public cause by staying away from the meeting,” she said. She added that it was not possible to hold the meeting offline as it would have meant going against the Government guidelines.
Manohar Kumbhare, ZP VicePresident and Congress leader, termed the opposition boycott of the meeting as ‘BJP’s double-standard’. “BJP is in power in Nagpur Municipal Corporation, where online meetings are conducted. The same BJP opposes online meeting in ZP. These people have nothing to do with resolving issues concerning the public. They should not forget that people are watching,” he said.
