Councillors Bharti Gajjar and Chandni Mistry arrived at Hove Town Hall at 4.15pm on Thursday in time for the 4.30pm start of the meeting, chaired by the deputy mayor Councillor Mohammed Assaduzzaman.
The pair were seated separately from their former Labour colleagues, in front of independent councillor Peter Atkinson and Brighton and Hove Independents councillors Mark Earthey and Bridget Fishleigh.
Councillor Gajjar left at 5.14pm and Councillor Mistry left at 5.20pm as her Queen’s Park ward colleague Tristram Burden responded to a public deputation about support for vulnerable people in temporary housing outside Brighton and Hove.
Before the meeting began the mother and daughter duo were secluded in a separate room guarded by town hall security staff.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service has asked the two councillors why they left the meeting after less than an hour.
Both councillors were expelled by Labour in December after an investigation into where they live and claims of election malpractice. They said that they lived in Brighton and Hove on their nomination forms.
And last month a complaint was filed with Brighton and Hove City Council’s audit and standards committee about an unnamed councillor “regarding their place of residence” during the local election in May last year.
A second complaint alleges that another unnamed councillor has “failed to act with integrity and honesty and/or failing to act lawfully by providing a false place of residence”.
Both councillors have links to Leicester. Councillor Mistry told the Leicester Mercury that she was from there in a 2020 interview.
Councillor Gajjar owns a house there and uses other Leicester addresses for three companies of which she is a director.
The Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, passed a dossier of evidence to Sussex Police and an investigation is understood to be taking place.
Councillor Atkinson said that he found the situation “baffling” when Councillors Gajjar and Mistry left after less than an hour while Councillor Fishleigh quipped: “I guess they had to get the train back to Leicester.”
The Labour group said: “On behalf of the residents of Kemptown and Queen’s Park, we are appalled that two of their elected representatives are behaving so badly.
“Independent councillors Chandni Mistry and Bharti Gajjar have not attended any council meetings for months.
“They turned up to full council today but left in the middle of questions from the public, less than an hour into this important public meeting.
“This not only lets down the people that voted for them and the communities they serve but the council as an organisation and all elected members who enter public service for the right reasons.
“Despite this, they continue to claim their financial member allowance despite failing to fulfil their public duties.
“We reiterate our calls for councillors Mistry and Gajjar to stand down immediately so that by-elections can take place and the communities in Queen’s Park and Kemp Town can be properly represented by new councillors.”
Opposition leader Steve Davis said: “Given the range of important issues being debated this evening and with the implications of huge Labour cuts now becoming apparent, it is hugely regrettable to see any councillors leave full council early unless they have been called away by an unavoidable emergency which, as a fellow councillor, I hope has not been the case this evening.
“For two councillors to leave within the first hour of full council, during an item discussing vulnerable adults, and before most councillors have had the chance to fully debate the important issues included on the agenda, is incredibly disappointing.
“It must leave residents – many of whom are concerned about funding cuts to vital services and some who have given up their own evenings to come to the town hall and ask questions on important subjects like nursery closures and council inaction in tackling air quality – wondering just how committed some councillors are to representing the interests of their residents and whether in the week Labour announced tens of millions of pounds in cuts, councillors claiming allowances should be showing far more commitment to the city and its people.”
Councillors must attend at least one meeting every six months. If they fail to do this, their seat is automatically vacated.
By attending the meeting on Thursday Councillors Gajjar and Mistry – the first to sign the register as well as the first to leave – can claim their allowances until the start of August.
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