11 councillors switch sides

Aamir Khan

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, May 21

Even as the Srinagar mayor and deputy mayor have patched up their differences, the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) continues to be in the news for all wrong reasons.

Now, its corporators are switching sides too often and the Congress is mulling a no-confidence motion after Deputy Mayor Sheikh Imran joined the Sajad Lone-led People’s Conference (PC).

While Imran, who was backed by the Congress for election to the deputy mayor’s post, joined the PC on Friday, 11 corporators on Tuesday joined the National Conference — the party that had boycotted the urban local bodies election last year. Earlier, three others had joined the Peoples Democratic Party that too had boycotted the municipal poll.

“We will have a meeting with the team of corporators after May 23 (the counting day of votes for the Lok Sabha seats) and then (officially) withdraw the support (to Imran)... he has already lost our support as he changed colours by joining the PC. He should have resigned from the deputy mayor’s post before joining the PC. We had supported him as an Independent and we had not supported the PC,” J&K Pradesh Congress Committee president GA Mir told The Tribune.

Pertinently, Imran had won the election to the deputy mayor’s post on November 6 last year by just one vote with the support of the 17 Congress corporators. Imran, who had contested the local bodies election, as an Independent, got 35 votes while his opponent received 34.

After the municipal election, Imran and Mayor Junaid Mattoo were never on the same page. When a woman corporator levelled sexual harassment charges against the mayor, Mattoo had said in January that she was working at the behest of Imran.

Imran had also sustained injuries in a corporation session in January. He had later blamed the “BJP and RSS-backed councillors” for the attack. The deputy mayor had even started a campaign asking people to prefix word ‘mujahid’ to their names in an apparent counter to prefixing of word ‘chowkidar’ by the BJP.

However, on May 17, Imran surprised all by joining the PC. On joining the party he had opposed, Imran said: “In my short political career, I have come across all major parties in J&K and found People’s Conference most welcoming with down-to-earth leadership and sense of camaraderie.”

Mattoo too had joined the PC before being elected the mayor. He had resigned from the NC to contest local bodies elections as an Independent.