Poll-ready councillors pack all in a day

CHANDIGARH: In their last effort to earn self-proclaimed accolades before imposing of code of conduct for the upcoming civic body elections, a slew of municipal corporation councillors including the mayor and the commissioner, did a lot in just one day. Not only did they allot the tender of the prestigious over-bridge project between KC theatre and Anand Complex in the commercial hub of Sector 17 on Monday, but also formally kick-started the construction work on Tuesday morning.
This happens to be the project initially conceptualized by master architect Le Corbusier in 1952, for which officials and planners took nearly 60 years to move ahead. However, it is not only the mayor and his party area councillor who have taken this hurried decision.
A number of other councillors from different parties have also followed suit. Former mayor and SAD councillor Harjinder Kaur opened a high-flying gym in the community centre of her ward in Sector-44 on Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, Sector-17 councillor and former mayor Pradeep Chhabra did not see any harm in starting the construction work of the Rs 18-crore over-bridge in his ward.
"This has been done in larger public interest as the construction work could not be started earlier. Whenever we floated tender for the same, only one interested bidder showed interest. But this time were at least three of them, out of which we chose the best one," Chhabra said.
While trying to justify their stand for starting the construction work just half an hour before the imposition of code of conduct in the city, Chhabra said, "This way, the work would not be halted during one and a half months of the code of conduct. We hope to see the completion of the prestigious project at the earliest."
Sharing a similar view, Harjinder Kaur said, "The multispecialty gym has been made for the residents of my ward. Since the work was almost complete, we inaugurated the gym so people do not have to wait for months to join."
"We were to open the gym in the evening but with the possibility of code of conduct in the evening, we carried out the inauguration in the morning."
However, senior nominated councillor M P S Chawla criticized the move by saying, "What was the need to starting the construction of the over-bridge in such a hurry? Many approved developmental works have not begun as yet. This was definitely done for political mileage."
Never too late
BJP councillors Ram Lal and Anil Kumar Dubey inaugurated the green belt and the community park in their respective wards of Ram Darbar and Vikas Nagar in Mauli Jagaran on Monday.
Muddled
In his hurriedly-convened press conference to list his achievements for the year on Tuesday, city mayor, Ravinder Pal Singh twice had a slip of tongue. First trying to say that "we three Congress mayors (former two a?? Chhabra and Chatrath) have worked hard together throughout the year". Singh said, "We hardly worked together." Then he said, "we hardly called this press conference", when he was to say "we hurriedly called this press conference".