The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has termed the decision of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) Standing Committee to gift its members brand new Apple iPhone as "brazen misuse of power" and demanded a rollback of the decision.
It is to be noted that the decision came at a time when all the 17 members of the Standing Committee, which is the final authority to approve the development projects of the Corporation, will demit office in the first week of February 2021. The proposal to buy the new iPhone 12 Pro Max (512GB) was among the 14 proposals that were listed on the agenda on Thursday.
According to the proposal, each phone would cost Rs 1.6 lakh and approval for a total sum of Rs 27.23 lakh has been reqested.
BJP chief spokesperson K Krishna Saagar Rao demanded that the decision be rolled back immediately.
"BJP feels it is a brazen abuse of power by the GHMC mayor and the deputy mayor in passing a resolution to gift iPhones to 17 outgoing corporators. They have gifted themselves iPhone max, which cost Rs 1.6 lakh per unit. It is the misuse of public money by the TRS corporators, the mayor and deputy mayor," he said in a video statement.
He added the TRS has not learnt a lesson. "The residents of the city have defeated them because of this kind of attitude, brazen behaviour, irresponsibility, abuse of power, misuse of public money, and now on their way out, they are trying to abuse that limited power they have for another two months. It is a shame that they continue to go ahead with it despite their loss in elections. Who has given them the right to spend public money? How can they be so irresponsible? The BJP wants this decision to be rolled back. These iPhones should not be gifted to corporators," he added.
Rao further said that when the BJP comes to power in February, "we will ensure these kinds of unilateral decisions, abuse and misuse of power do not occur. This unilateralism will not work", he added.
The TRS enjoys a brute majority of 99 corporators in the present 150-member corporation.
In the recently concluded elections for 149 seats, the BJP won 48 seats, TRS 55, AIMIM 44 and Congress won two seats. Later, the TRS also won the Neredmet Division of the GHMC after the counting of votes was taken up on December 9, following the Telangana High Court orders. With the victory in Neredmet, TRS's tally in the GHMC has gone up to 56.
( With inputs from ANI )
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