As many as 40 ward councillors boycotted the Ranchi Municipal Corporation board meeting on Thursday because the mayor and deputy mayor arrived late.

The meeting was scheduled for 11am, but mayor Asha Lakra and deputy mayor Sanjeev Vijayvargiya reached only around 12.30pm, said a source in the Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC).

“Only 13 of the 53 councillors were present during the meeting,” the RMC source said.

Councillor of ward 26 Arun Kumar Jha, who was among those who boycotted the meeting, said this was not the first time the mayor and deputy mayor were late.

“They often come late to meetings while most of the councillors reach on time leaving urgent assignments in their wards. Today they reached one-and-a-half hour late without any prior information. This irritated councillors and they decided to boycott the meeting, I was among them,” Jha said.

Mayor Lakra said she was delayed due to her participation in Union minister of state Suresh C. Angadi’s programme at Ranchi railway station.

“I along with the deputy mayor had gone to participate in the Union minister’s programme and thus got late for the meeting,” Lakra said.

She said the boycott did not affect the meeting.

Vijayvargiya echoed the mayor.

“As many as 13 councillors — besides me, mayor madam, Hatia MLA Naveen Jaiswal and Khijri MLA Ram Kumar Pahan — were present at the board meeting. As only 11 councillors are required to complete quorum of the board, we held the meeting uninterrupted and took some important decisions,” the deputy mayor said.

Asked what decisions were taken in the meeting, he said: “The board approved the proposal for beautification of ponds at Argora, Tiril, Hundru, Hesag and Bariatu. The board rejected the traffic coordination committee’s proposal of collecting Rs 10 from two-wheelers and Rs 40 from four-wheelers as parking fee and decided to stick to its eight-month-old decision of keeping the parking fee of two-wheelers at Rs 5 and Rs 20 for four-wheelers.”

An RMC official, who spoke under cover of anonymity, rued the situation.

“Boycotting the meeting, the councillors assembled on the ground floor and raised slogans against the mayor and deputy mayor. It was for the first time such poor attendance was noticed in the board meeting,” the official said.