Mangaluru: After being deputed as the Mayor Of Mangaluru City Corporation, Jacintha Alfred D’Souza has made it to the headlines and not for all the right reasons.

She has now been laced with another controversy, as residents of Sutarpet in Attavar have leveled allegations against her that she has been refusing to supply water to three houses in the vicinity, which reportedly have been facing a water problem for the past eight years.

Coming to their rescue, the locals, in association with CPI (M) staged a protest in front of the MCC on Tuesday, October 20.

Addressing the protestors, Sunil Kumar Bajal, Mangaluru City Unit Secretary of CPI(M) said that the Mayor has been depriving drinking water to three families in her ward. Though the houses were facing acute shortage of water, the present Mayor who was the then corporator of Attavar ward, was reluctant to cater to their needs.

He said that repeated submission of memorandums to leaders at various levels did not yield any result, adding that the Mayor had thrown a challenge to them that she would make sure that the three houses never get water. Out of the three houses, one belongs to a senior citizen, the second house has a chronic patient and the third house comprises women and children.

Currently, the helpless residents of the three houses have been buying water supplied through a tanker costing them Rs 900 per day.

In response to these allegations, Deputy Commissioner of MCC Gokuldas Nayak assured that he would send a System Engineer at the earliest and look into the issue.

CPI (M) warned that it would stage indefinite protests from October 21 at the entrance of MCC office, if the issue is not fixed by the end of the day.

Vasudev Uchchil, Bharath Bolar, Premanath Jalligudde, Pramila Shaktinagar were present among others.