Face2News/Chandigarh
The Press Statement of Mayor, Chandigarh, Sh. Kuldeep Kumar regarding Administrator’s ‘refusal to meet Mayor’, is reprehensible.
He was apprised about the cancellation of appointment one hour before the scheduled meeting. The Mayor had sought appointment from Governor’s office as a ‘Courtesy Call’ (copy of request enclosed), without mentioning any specific purpose of meeting. It was through media reports in the morning that it came to fore that Mayor’s intention was to discuss several issues including the issue of 20,000 litres of free water to each household, annual hike in water tariffs and other developmental works with the Administrator.
Despite the cancellation of appointment, the Mayor reached Punjab Raj Bhavan wherein, it was again impressed upon him that due to imposition of Model Code of Conduct no such agendas can be taken up for discussion. Since this information was shared with him an hour before the meeting, therefore, there was no reason for him to visit Punjab Raj Bhavan.
If the Governor had no intent of meeting Mayor then he would have not given any appointment in the first place; it was only after reading about his actual intent of meeting, in the garb of a courtesy call, that the appointment was cancelled.
In view of the media statement of the Mayor, the facts are necessary to be threadbare; hence the clarification has been issued.