Coimbatore: Bowing to pressure from civic activists and opposition political parties, the newly appointed Smart City Project special purpose vehicle chief executive officer (CEO) R. Suganya quietly tendered her resignation on Monday. Political parties held a series of protests here in recent days against the city corporation for making “a political appointment of an ineligible candidate”.
Many persons with experience in urban planning had applied for the CEO's post under smart city plan, but to no avail. It was then that political parties including DMK, BJP had accused that the civic body had changed rules and regulations to suit a predetermined candidate. Even before this suspicion could die down, the corporation had appointed Ms. R Suganya, daughter of former AIADMK MLA, K.P. Raju, as CEO of the smart city project, drawing all-round flak from opposition parties and civic activists.
Leading the political fight was Singanallur DMK MLA Karthik who had petitioned the corporation commissioner K. Vijaykarthikeyan. He said in his petition that “after long struggle,” Coimbatore had got selected for smart city status tag from the Central government that would give it access to considerable funds for the development of the textile city.
Though in the past few years, the city corporation had not appointed any senior person to the CEo’s post, opposition alleged that due to AIADMK's political influence, it had recently appointed a person with no experience in urban development. According to the candidate’s qualifications, “corporation framed rules for crucial government posting.”
Mr Karthik further said that “Coimbatore will get Rs 3, 000 crore under the smart city plan over the next three years. Corporation has selected a person, but has appointed a person as CEO with no experience in human resources management, raising questions about the merits of the selection process and credibility of higher corporation officials.” Subsequently, the BJP also staged a protest which was led by the party's state vice-president Ms. Vanathi Srinivasan against the appointment of an illegible candidate to the CEO's post. They also threatened to represent the problem to the Union Urban Development Ministry.
In the wake of such strong pressures from all around, Ms. R. Suganya Smart City Project CEO tendered her resignation on Monday.
The Coimbatore corporation and Municipal Administration department have accepted her resignation, drawing the controversy to a quick close.
