North Delhi Mayor Jai Prakash said he has "suspended" all present Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillors of the BJP-led NDMC House for three months for allegedly "misbehaving and creating ruckus" during its proceedings on Tuesday.
He said the AAP councillors wanted to have a discussion on the issue of due salaries of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation employees, but it soon "devolved into a commotion".
The Aam Aadmi Party has 30 councillors in NDMC which has been controlled by the BJP since 2012.
"Twenty-two councillors of AAP have been suspended for misbehaving and creating ruckus inside the House. Some of them stood on desks, some trooped to the Well of the House. And social distancing norms were thrown to the wind, hence the action," the mayor said.
AAP's in-charge of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), Durgesh Pathak, however, claimed "all our councillors were suspended".
"We had very democratic questions for the NDMC but instead of responding to that they suspended the councillors. This shows that the BJP is scared and they are running away from solving problems faced by the people," he said.
A senior NDMC official also said that the mayor ordered suspension of nearly all present AAP councillors, including Leader of Opposition Vikas Goel, for the next three sessions of the House.
A House session of the NDMC is convened once every month. Pathak said Aam Aadmi Party councillors will hold a day-long sit-in protest outside the mayor's office on Wednesday, demanding a rollback of the suspension order.
He alleged that the BJP is "so scared to get exposed that they are trying to stop the voices of the Aam Aadmi Party".
"Intimidation tactics of the Bharatiya Janata party like arresting our leaders or suspending our leaders will not silence our voice," he said.
"While the House was in session, Aam Aadmi Party councillors wanted to raise some issues. But the Bharatiya Janata Party (members) did not allow us to speak inside the House and when Aam Aadmi Party representatives tried to raise their voice again, they decided to suspend all our councillors for the next three months," Mr Pathak said.
"This is a very undemocratic act and the Aam Aadmi Party condemns this behaviour of the BJP," he said.
Mr Goel alleged that in the past 14 years, the BJP has ruined the MCD and now, it is scared to take questions. "Today the BJP''s real face got exposed," he said.
"They have no answers to our questions, and therefore, they suspended our councillors... This suspension is a proof of the BJP''s dictatorial mindset," Mr Goel said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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