Amid opposition,Mayor regularises encroachment

Bains spoke at length on the issue,and a few Congress councillors,too,supported him,but only once the meeting was over. The item was passed by the mayor as a majority did not object and the meeting was adjourned soon. Bains alleged: “One of the persons accused of encroaching upon MC land is Dalbar Singh,who is the mayor’s nephew. The rest,too,are close to him. If the policy has been opened for four,thousands will now come to get the encroachments done by them regularised. I will apprise the High Court about this,and also intimate SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal.”

The agenda mentioned that the four encroachers had been living on a village shamlat land for a long time and had no money to buy land in city areas,and hence the encroachments should be regularised at the prevailing District Collectorate rate. The four are Gurbaksh Singh,who has encroached 8.44 square yards,Dalbar Singh (103.11 square yards),Shinderpal Singh (169.58 square yards) and Raghubir Singh (152.77 square yards).

Shinderpal has been given land at Rs 2,550 per sq yard while the rest at Rs 3,200 per square yard,though the prevailing market prices in the area are not less than Rs 20,000 per square yard.

In a recent meeting of the MC,Bains had opposed the mayor’s proposal to include this item on the main agenda for Tuesday’s meeting. Giaspura,however,did not listen to the objection and his son Jaspal Singh,also a councillor,confronted Bains.

In the house of 75 councillors,not more than 10 SAD councillors supported Bains on Tuesday,too,and while the argument was on,the mayor got the agenda with 13 items passed and walked out of the House. The Congress councillors later raised slogans against Giaspura and the state government. Councillor Rakesh Prasher said: “The Opposition leader did not say anything. He should have raised this issue.” Another congress councillor,however,said: “SAD leaders are fighting among themselves,we should enjoy this.”

Giaspura,meanwhile,denied any favourtism and insisted that the four people mentioned in the agenda were “really poor”. He refused to comment on why he chose only four of them.

The rift between Bains and Giaspura is not new and thay have come out against each other a number of times earlier too. Bains said he would stick to his stand because he was an elected representative and was answerable to the masses.