Council Schism Deepens as Sixteen Corporators Call for Removal of Party Group Leader in CMC

On the twenty‑first of June of the present year, a collective of sixteen elected corporators within the Chittagong Municipal Corporation formally submitted a resolution demanding the immediate removal of the incumbent party group leader, citing alleged breaches of internal party discipline and repeated obstruction of council business. The petition, lodged with the municipal secretary’s office on the same afternoon, accuses the leader of favouring partisan interests over civic obligations, thereby undermining the council’s statutory duty to provide essential services such as water distribution, solid‑waste management, and street lighting to the city’s inhabitants.

According to the written memorandum accompanying the resolution, the corporators allege that the leader’s refusal to endorse several budgetary amendments pertaining to the refurbishment of the central drainage network has precipitated recurrent flooding in low‑lying neighborhoods, an issue which municipal officials have repeatedly pledged to rectify yet have failed to implement within the prescribed fiscal timetable. The document further contends that, despite repeated requests for clarification, the party group leader has consistently evaded council hearings, thereby depriving the electorate of transparent deliberation and contravening provisions of the Municipal Governance Act of 1919, which mandates open discussion of all appropriations exceeding one hundred thousand rupees.

In response, the party group leader, Mr. Arunava Choudhury, issued a terse communiqué on the twenty‑second, asserting that the allegations constitute a politically motivated smear campaign designed to destabilise the council’s majority and to advance the personal ambitions of a factional minority within the party’s municipal wing. He further maintained that the pending drainage projects have been delayed not through dereliction of duty but owing to the unavailability of central government grants, a circumstance beyond the immediate control of the municipal executive, and therefore any punitive action against him would be both unjust and procedurally unsound.

Residents of the Old Harbour precinct, whose homes have suffered repeated inundation since the monsoon of 2025, reported that the council’s inaction has forced them to abandon commercial activities, resulting in an estimated loss of three hundred thousand rupees in annual revenue, a figure that municipal auditors have struggled to reconcile with the proclaimed fiscal prudence of the administration. Moreover, the failure to approve the scheduled replacement of fifty‑seven malfunctioning street lamps in the adjoining neighbourhoods has left numerous families navigating dimly lit thoroughfares after dusk, thereby heightening the risk of accidents and petty crime, concerns that community leaders have raised in multiple public hearings without receiving substantive reassurances from the municipal chamber.

Historically, the CMC has witnessed sporadic factional disputes within the ruling party, most notably during the 2018 municipal elections when a similar cohort of corporators attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to unseat the then‑party secretary over disagreements concerning the allocation of developmental grants to peripheral wards. The present petition, however, distinguishes itself by invoking statutory provisions of the Municipal Governance Act for the first time in a concerted effort to compel an internal party organ to initiate disciplinary proceedings, thereby setting a precedent that could recalibrate the balance of power between elected representatives and party hierarchies within urban local bodies.

Given that the municipal charter obliges the council to ensure the uninterrupted provision of basic utilities and to safeguard public safety, one must inquire whether the procedural mechanisms currently employed by the party leadership to shield its officials from accountability are compatible with the overarching statutory mandate to act in the public interest, or whether they merely serve as a veil for partisan self‑preservation. Furthermore, as the resolution seeks to invoke a provision that requires a super‑majority of council members before any disciplinary action may be commenced, it raises the substantive question of whether such a threshold, ostensibly designed to promote consensus, inadvertently entrenches minority dominance and hampers the ability of a determined majority of elected representatives to redress genuine maladministration. Consequently, one is compelled to consider whether the present impasse, manifested in delayed infrastructure projects and deteriorating civic services, may ultimately constitute a de facto breach of the municipal government's fiduciary duty, thereby obligating the oversight commission to intervene under the provisions of the Local Government Accountability Act of 1915.

It also behooves the citizenry to ask whether the municipal finance office, which has repeatedly signalled shortfalls in central funding, has duly documented the fiscal constraints that allegedly impede project execution, or whether the absence of transparent accounting has been exploited to justify administrative inertia and deflect responsibility onto partisan rivals. Moreover, the legal counsel retained by the council has not yet provided a definitive interpretation of the statutory provision invoked by the dissenting corporators, prompting the inquiry whether the lack of a clear juridical opinion reflects a systemic deficiency in the provision of legal support to elected officials, thereby undermining the very principle of rule‑of‑law governance within municipal institutions. Finally, one must deliberate whether the broader electorate, observing the protracted stalemate and attendant service disruptions, retains any effective mechanism to compel the municipal apparatus to adhere to its own procedural codes, or whether the prevailing architecture of party‑centric control has rendered the ordinary resident’s voice a merely ornamental feature of democratic façade.

Published: June 15, 2026