Obey my instructions, says Priya losing her cool

CHENNAI: Mayor R Priya lost her temper during the monthly council meeting, when some council members disobeyed her instructions and exceeded the allotted time limit to voice their demands and suggestions.

Each council member is allotted only 5 minutes to speak but some exceeded even 20 minutes, which irritated the Mayor.

When the 24th Ward Councillor A Settu of the AIADMK was talking about issues in his ward, councillors of the DMK party interrupted him saying that he had exceeded his time limit. But the AIADMK councillor complained that the Mayor let DMK members speak if after they exceeded their time limit, whereas if AIADMK members did the same, their mic was disconnected.

Subsequently the AIADMK floor leader KPK Sateesh Kumar criticised the way the council meeting was held and alleged that the council was not allowing AIADMK members to speak.

While the 11th Zone Committee Chairman V Rajan exceeded his time limit, the Mayor asked him to wrap up his speech. But Rajan demanded extra time to register his demands and she let him continue. This created a noisy argument in the council between the members.

This made the Mayor lose her cool, but in less than a minute, she recalibrated again. Later, the Mayor advised the members to obey her instructions and keep the time limit while addressing the council.

Most of the DMK council members invested major part of time allotted to them to laud and celebrate the Chief Minister and Sports minister Udhayanidhi Stalin.