A day after Punjab governor and UT administrator Banwarilal Purohit denied meeting city mayor Kuldeep Kumar Dhalor, who had planned to discuss various issues, including the annual 5% hike in water tariffs and the implementation plan for 20,000 litres of free water to each household every month, the official statement from the governor office clarified that “no agenda can be discussed with the model code of conduct in place”.

The official statement, released on Thursday, said, “The mayor was apprised of the cancellation of appointment one hour before the scheduled meeting. The mayor had sought appointment from the governor’s office as a ‘courtesy call’, without mentioning any specific purpose of meeting. It was through media reports in the morning that it came to fore that the mayor’s intention was to discuss several issues, including the issue of 20,000 litres of free water to each household, annual hike in water tariffs and other developmental works with the administrator.”

“Despite the cancellation of appointment, the mayor reached Punjab Raj Bhavan, wherein, it was again impressed upon him that due to imposition of model code of conduct no such agendas can be taken up for discussion. Since this information was shared with him an hour before the meeting, therefore, there was no reason for him to visit Punjab Raj Bhavan. If the governor had no intent of meeting the mayor, then he would not have given any appointment in the first place; it was only after reading about his actual intent of meeting, in the garb of a courtesy call, that the appointment was cancelled,” the statement further read.

After the mayor reached the governor office on Wednesday morning, the governor’s officer on special duty (OSD) had informed him and the accompanying Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders that the governor did not wish to discuss the free water proposal and hence had refused to meet them. “We will reschedule the appointment as per his convenience,” the OSD had told them.

Following this, the mayor had said, “I just wanted to meet the administrator as a courtesy and wanted to discuss several development-related issues for the betterment of the city. He simply denied meeting me. I had scheduled an appointment and was also given time, but when he came to know that I wanted to talk about a public issue like 20,000 litres of free water, his OSD cancelled my appointment. I am an elected representative of the people and it is my duty to continuously bring the issues related to the people before the administrator, which I will continue to do in future also. I will once again make an effort that the administrator should talk to those who are related to the public, as the councillor is the voice of the public.”