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Mangalore, Sep 28: Harinath, leader of opposition in Mangalore City Corporation has dared the mayor M Shankar Bhat of the ruling BJP to release the list of  Congress corporators who allegedly were in the payroll of Infrastructure Development Foundation consultant Dharmaraj. Bhat, at the last monthly meeting had displayed a list of corporators who were in the payroll of Dharmaraj without going public with its contents.

Responding to queries directed at him at a press meet convened by former MLA K Vijaykumar Shetty about the move on part of MCC to supply excess water to coal stacking yard of Udupi power project at New Mangalore Port, he said, Congress will then go public with corrupt practices that corporators of the ruling BJP including the mayor are indulging in. The issue of water supply had dominated the meeting proceedings.

Interestingly, it was Harinath, who at the meeting raised the issue of Dharmaraj, and his alleged corrupt ways. This issue completely sidetracked the issue of water supply to the yard raised by former mayor M Shashidhar Hegde of the Congress. The opposition corporators led by Harinath had staged a protest in the well of the house playing a gong and shouting slogans condemning the mayor's attitude on both these issues.

However when confronted with their behaviour at the meeting, Harinath took pains to explain that the Congress had not gone soft on the issue of Dharmaraj. "We have urged the deputy commissioner, who is the nodal officer for executing projects taken up by MCC utilizing special grants given by the state to appoint more consultants to ensure that the pace of road concreting works across the city is speeded up'', Hegde observed.

While Shashidhar agreed that Dharmaraj had come in as the IDF consultant in 1991 when the Congress was in power, he said, at that time, Dharmaraj had executed just one road concreting work. However, now at a time when the MCC is on a road-concreting spree, it does not make sense to have just one person as a consultant and there is a need for more consultants.