A special budget meeting of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) house, presided over by Mayor Shelly Oberoi, was adjourned on Tuesday within three minutes after it began. The meeting was convened to approve the budget proposals for the Revised Budget Estimates for 2022-2023 and Budget Estimates for 2023-2024. However, the Mayor distributed copies of the budget to all councilors and informed them that the discussion will take place on Wednesday, which led to the adjournment of the meeting.
The house meeting has now been adjourned till 2 pm on Wednesday to allow councilors to study the Budget Estimates to be tabled in the House. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) released a statement saying, “The Special Budget Meeting of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi has been adjourned till Wednesday 2 pm. With this adjournment, all councilors have been given sufficient time to study the Budget Estimates to be tabled in the House.”
As per officials, the ruling party is expected to table four private members’ resolutions while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to table ten resolutions and cut motions. However, the House adjournment within three minutes did not go down well with the BJP, which blamed the AAP for the failure of the budget meeting. BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said, “Calling a meeting to discuss the budget on just 72 hours’ notice is against the corporation’s working system, but in their stubbornness, both the Mayor and AAP did not listen to our suggestion.”
Shankar added that due to non-compliance with the rules, the corporation secretary’s office did not accept any amendment proposal. All amendment proposals came to the table, which could not be discussed immediately, and as a result, today’s meeting was postponed. BJP demanded that a long meeting of at least eight hours be convened to discuss the budget.
