Remove Buterla gate in memory of SAD councillor: Mayor to Mitra

Tribune News Service

Sandeep Rana

Chandigarh, March 9

In what has sparked off a political fight between the local units of AAP and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), Mayor Kuldeep Kumar Dhalor has written to MC Commissioner Anindita Mitra to remove Councillor Malkiat Singh Buterla Memorial Gate at an entrance to the village in Sector 41 here and also recover fine from the person(s) who had installed it.

Deceased Malkiat was a councillor and brother of Hardeep Singh, the city SAD president and councillor.

Dhalor, who is also an AAP councillor, said he had been receiving several complaints about it following which he wrote to the MC chief. “There are several former councillors and mayors. Tomorrow, their families will also want to have such memorials. We cannot have different yardsticks for different people,” he said.

One of the complaints was lodged by Tejinder Singh Lucky, a resident of Buterla, to the Mayor, which the latter forwarded to the MC Commissioner with remarks “immediate removal of the gate and calculate the fine and recover it from the concerned person”.

Lucky stated that various complaints had been filed time and again with different authorities for the removal of the gate. Despite two RTI applications filed in connection with this gate, no action had been taken. Hence, the Mayor was requested to direct the authority concerned to get the board removed immediately from the entrance to Buterla village.

In addition to this, the Mayor said he had written a separate letter to Mitra.

Area councillor Hardeep Singh said, “Since he (Malkiat) was a sitting councillor from here when he died during a study tour, we, along with area residents, had put up this gate as a memorial to him. The Mayor is doing politics. This matter was also taken up during a recent House meeting in which councillors Saurabh Joshi and Jasbir Singh Bunty led the appeal to support the memorial gate and the House had resolved to keep it intact.”

Malkiat Singh, (36), had complained of stomach ache during a study tour to Port Blair in 2014. He was admitted to the AIIMS, New Delhi, where he died.

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