Karwar: The Centre's Ujwal scheme raised a rift between BJP and Congress members at the Zilla Panchayat General Meeting, on Friday.

Yellapur Taluk Panchayat President Bhavya Shetty alleged that the protocol was being violated by officials without calling public representatives for the distribution of gas under Ujwal scheme.

Pushpa Naik, G N Hegde and Albert D'Costa of Congress accused that, only BJP members have been invited to programmes, ignoring all congress members.

Objecting to Congress members, Jagadish Nayak of BJP asked them not to bring in party matters at the Zilla Panchayat general meeting.

He said “Yes, we are attending the programmes. If, you too wish to attend do so. No one can stop us from taking part in programmes.”

Other member Gayathri Gowda, Veena Naik and Usha Hegde of BJP also joined Jagadish Nayak in his response to the Congress members allegations. However, Pushpa said, “I am not questioning you. I want Zilla Panchayat President to answer my question.” She also urged officials to clarify the confusion regarding free distribution of gas.

Intervening in the debate, Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer L Chandrashekhar said, it is mandatory to call public representatives to all government programmes. However, it is not necessary to call them for the planned programmes.

Albert D’Costa became angry when, Community Resource Person claimed that, the cluster level ‘talent honour programmes’ were not held due to scarcity of funds, and said, it is a matter of embarrassment for public representatives.

Sirsi Deputy Director of Public Instruction H Prasannakumar said, funds will be released only for taluk and district level to organize talent honour programmes.

Earlier, funds were released for cluster levels from the money sanctioned for taluk levels. This time, taluks have not get funds. Hence, the distribution of fund was delayed, he informed.

“There are more than 300 schools in Sirsi Taluk. Therefore it is not possible to organize talent honour programmes in taluk level. If we do so, we need three to four days to organise competitions,” he explained.

The discussions were held on other issues like, while distributing furniture's to schools, public representatives should be brought to notice and the sports should be conducted after rainy reason, as students face problems, playing in rain.

Meanwhile, Zilla Panchayat President Jayashree Moger released the annual administration report.

Standing Committee President Shivanand Hegde and Basavraj Dodmani were present on occasion.