The ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) in the city Corporation will be bringing in the agendas that it had got “passed” in the council meeting held earlier this month, to be passed again in the council meeting on Friday. The ruling front was caught in this situation, after it failed to convince the councillors of the opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) despite talks to make them withdraw their dissent note against passing the agenda.
The previous council meeting, held on August 1, was marred by protests from both the opposition UDF as well as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Mayor V.K. Prasanth had denied permission to UDF councillor Beemappally Rasheed to move a motion condemning the violent incidents in the city last month. He said the motion could be moved only after the agendas were presented.
Declared passed
Not heeding to the protests, the standing committee chairpersons quickly read out the agendas for the day and the Mayor declared them passed. The BJP councillors had torn the agenda document in protest.
Both the BJP and the UDF had submitted dissent notes against passing the agenda to the Corporation Secretary. The LDF leadership reached out to the UDF leaders in the council to get them to withdraw the dissent note, to avoid the agendas being presented again.
Although some of the UDF leaders were in favour of withdrawing the dissent note, there was opposition from within the front against the move. Some UDF leaders had spoken in favour of withdrawing the note, when The Hindu had contacted them earlier this month.
“We had held talks within the party and with the LDF leaders. The collective decision within the party was to not withdraw the note. There was not much difference of opinion on this,” said UDF council party leader Johnson Joseph.
The LDF leaders said that they did not press the matter further seeing the differences within the UDF.
If the UDF had refrained from marking their dissent, the agendas would have been considered as passed. But with the combined strength of the UDF and the BJP being more than that of the LDF, it has to be presented in the council and passed again.