No need to accept Shimla mayor’s resignation: Cong

SHIMLA: Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee chief Kaul Singh on Saturday said that there was no need to accept Shimla Municipal Corporation Mayor Madhu Sood’s resignation as she is innocent on the housing project issue at Kanlog.
Talking to TOI, he said that Madhu had given him a back-dated letter in which she had mentioned that she wanted to resign as Mayor of the Shimla Municipal Corporation.“However, the party sees no reason for accepting her resignation, as she was forced by the state government to sign the statement of her reported U-turn on the allegations she had made earlier,” he alleged.
He said that the BJP government in the state did not want the Congress controlled corporation to function efficiently. The government is not allocating any funds to the corporation so that the Congress could be held responsible for its inefficient functioning.
Kaul Singh said that the Mayor had confided to him that she was with the Congress party on the stand it had taken on the Kanlog project. “The project had come under scrutiny only after the allegations had been leveled by the Mayor against the Commissioner, Shimla Municipal Corporation, on May 16, and demanded that he be removed from the post for allegedly showing favours to Bemloe Developers,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Mayor also confirmed that she was under a lot of pressure from various quarters and she had signed on a prepared statement and the signatures were hers. “I do not feel that I have done any wrong in issuing the statement, but as the Congress party has taken offence of it, I have tendered my resignation to the party state leadership to take the a final decision,” she claimed.
Her resignation to the HPCC chief led to speculations in the state capital that BJP government may utilise the fiasco in the Congress to dissolve the Congress-ruled corporation.