No-trust notice in Kalimpong municipality

Rajeev Ravidas, TT, Kalimpong: Fourteen councillors of the Kalimpong municipality belonging to the Binay Tamang faction of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha on Monday formally wrote to the chairman of the civic body, Suva Pradhan, seeking a special meeting of the board to remove him from the post.

The letter, which bears the signatures of the 14 councillors, has requested that the special meeting to carry out the vote of no-confidence be convened at the earliest. "The single-point agenda of the meeting will be to remove the chairman of the municipality from his office," said Ravi Pradhan, the councillor of ward 3.

The municipality chairman said he had 15 days time to call the meeting and would take a call soon.

"I have received the letter seeking a special meeting of the board. As per the West Bengal Municipality Act, I have to summon the meeting within 15 days. I don't think I will wait so long to call the meeting," he said.

Pradhan, however, ruled out his resignation from the post of the chairman and indicated that he would face the vote of no-confidence.

As per the Municipality Act, once one-third of the total councillors of the civic body give a written notice for summoning the special meeting, the chairman has to convene it within 15 days. If he fails to do so, the vice-chairman is authorised to call the meeting within the next seven days. In the event of even the vice-chairman failing to call the meeting, at least three councillors on their own can call a meeting within subsequent seven days.

The 23-member Kalimpong municipality has 22 sitting councillors following the death of a member in late October. Apart from the 14 belonging to the Binay faction, six, including the chairman, are no longer associated with any party and the remaining two belong to the Jana Andalan Party (JAP).

In the last municipality election held in May, the undivided Morcha had won 19 seats, and the remaining four seats were divided equally between the JAP and the Trinamul Congress. The two Trinamul councillors later defected to the Morcha during the height of the recent unrest in the hills.