Image Source: The New Indian Express
During the council meeting on Thursday, 27 July 2023, some women councillors of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) from Tirunelveli Corporation held a protest, claiming that former Minister TPM Mohideen Khan, who is also the party’s Tirunelveli central district unit in-charge, had threatened their lives.
Few DMK women councillors of Tirunelveli Corporation alleged that the DMK district in-charge & former Minister TPM Mohideen Khan posed a life threat to them and protested during the council meeting pic.twitter.com/IbH9lNDyTE
— Thinakaran Rajamani (@thinak_) July 27, 2023
At the beginning of the meeting, Tirunelveli Zone’s Chairperson, Maheshwari, made a direct accusation against Mr. Khan, alleging that he had threatened her life. In this video above, you can see, she says, “The district in charge gave us death threats, how is this fair?”
The alleged threat occurred in relation to the selection of candidates for the Corporation’s taxation appellate committee election, which took place on Thursday. According to Maheshwari, Mr. Khan issued the threat while both the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor, K.R. Raju, were present, but they did not respond to the situation.
The ladies were asked her not to discuss party-related matters and asked her to put forth any issues related to her ward.
To this, the lady councillor said, “So are we not important? Can you speak like this by calling only the Corporation Chairman?”
The lady councillor continued, ” There are 55 of us, who is he going to kill?”
The Mayor replied, “The election was transparent and all of you voted in the elections.”
Following the election of nine members to the taxation appeal committee, Mayor PM Saravanan and Commissioner V Sivakrishnamurthy presided over the council meeting. However, during the meeting, six councillors sat on the floor and insisted on receiving an explanation from the mayor. The Mayor kept repeating that they should only discuss ward-related matters and these were unnecessary issues to be discussed.
— Thinakaran Rajamani (@thinak_) July 27, 2023
Despite Commissioner Sivakrishnamurthy’s efforts to calm the situation, the councillors remained unsatisfied. As a result, both the mayor and the commissioner left the meeting briefly but later returned after some time.
The internal conflicts within the ruling DMK party spilled over into the Corporation Council meeting, where these councillors sat on the floor in front of Mayor P.M. Saravanan to make their accusations.
(With inputs from New Indian Express)
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