Thiruvananthapuram mayor's letter row: BJP issues notice for special council

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As protests gain strength over the letter row, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday issued a notice to convene a special council to discuss the issue.
The special council is likely to be convened within 10 days.
The BJP parliamentary party leader MR Gopan said that Thiruvananthapuram Mayor Arya Rajendran violated the oath of office by sending a letter to the CPM district secretary seeking priority list of candidates for vacant posts in health centres.
"We have always brought up instances of illegal recruitment driven by partisanship. The special council has to be convened and Mayor has to give proper answers," said M R Gopan.
The BJP councillors said that the manner in which LDF parliamentary party secretary D R Anil owned up to his letter while the mayor denied it shows the internal rift among the CPM councillors.
The special council will also discuss the audit observations regarding the appointment of daily wage staff in the city corporation.
The local fund audit department has made some scathing observations in the report filed for 2020-21 regarding the daily wage employees of the city corporation.
The report points out that the scrutiny of files related to daily wage workers in the corporation office revealed that they have been in service for years.
30 anti-mosquito workers in the contingent category, 31 sanitary workers, 26 drivers, eight drivers in the regular category, one pump operator, one tele attender, 10 watchmen, 24 data entry operators, one junior computer programmer, one sweeper cum counter staff were found to be serving for years.