Ludhiana: A high drama was witnessed in Sarabha Nagar when Harpreet Bedi, husband of former councillor Veeran Bedi, was involved in heated arguments with MC officials over the removal of hoardings at night on Wednesday.
Bedi, a SAD leader, alleged that MC officials removed hoardings of Akali and BJP leaders but left hoardings of the Congress leaders. Meanwhile, when Akali leader raised hue and cry, the civic officials removed some of the hoardings of Congress leaders too.
The Akali leader alleged that officials intentionally removed the hoardings at night so attract least resistance. Bedi also alleged that MC officials were working on the directions of the Congress leaders and this is the reason they are doing such activities at night time. He said MC polls are ahead and political parties will install their hoardings and Congress will get the hoardings of other parties removed.
Sources said a prominent BJP leader also argued with the MC officials, saying if hoardings of BJP leaders were removed then the same principle should be applied to hoardings of the Congress leaders too. He said MC officials were adopting pick and choose policy.
However, the civic officials refuted these allegations and claimed that matter was in the knowledge of the MC Commissioner. They have opted to remove hoardings at night as it is easy to work in the absence of traffic on the roads, they said.
The officials claimed that they removed the hoardings from all major roads falling in A, C and D zones including Mall Road, Hambran Road, Ferozepur Road, Bus stand Road, BRS Nagar, Dugri Road, Gill Road, Chura Bazaar, Dholewal, Ghumar Mandi, Model Town, Kitchlu Nagar, Rishi Nagar, GT Road etc.
MC superintendent Jasdev Singh Sekhon said they were asked to remove the hoardings at the night time and they removed illegal religious, political and commercial hoardings from all roads till 4am on Thursday. Denying the charges levelled by the Akali leaders, he said that they took action against every party.
