BMC polls in mind, Shinde-Fadnavis on a civic project launching spree

Mumbai: With eyes on Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls, the chief minister Eknath Shinde and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis will kick off yet another set of civic works at eastern suburb Tilak Nagar in Chembur on Sunday

Mumbai: With eyes on Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls, the chief minister Eknath Shinde and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis will kick off yet another set of civic works at eastern suburb Tilak Nagar in Chembur on Sunday. Earlier, they had done two similar ceremonies at Gateway of India and Andheri sports complex.

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The Shiv Sena led by Shinde and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) BJP are contesting the elections together and want to take control of the BMC, which is being ruled by Shiv Sena for over 25 years.

This follows the January 19 visit of prime minister Narendra Modi, who dedicated Metro 2 A and 7 to Mumbai. He also announced a slew of infrastructure projects. Earlier in December, Shinde and Fadnavis had launched a beautification drive in Mumbai.

On Sunday, the duo, Shinde and Fadnavis, will flag off additional 320 projects for Mumbai and this includes concretisation of 52 kms of road – some of which also fall in Chembur and Nehru Nagar. The MLA of Nehru Nagar constituency, Mangesh Kudalkar had come from Uddhav faction to Shinde led Sena. The BMC will also flag off sewerage treatment schemes in the eastern schemes on Sunday.

Vishakha Raut, former leader of the BMC house and deputy leader of Shiv Sena (UBT group) said, “A CM must behave like a CM. Cement concretisation is a regular work of BMC and we never had ground breaking ceremonies for such routine projects. This is not correct.”

Shiv Sena (UBT) group spokesperson and leader Sanjay Raut said, “The CM is not directly connected with these projects. This is a drive to seek publicity. These projects were in the pipeline and he is only doing ground breaking to earn publicity. We are watching this and so are people.”

Sheetal Mhatre, a former corporator and a spokesperson of the Shiv Sena said, “Since there is an administrator in BMC, the CM is doing Bhoomi poojan. It is a routine thing. Yuva Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray had raised objections on cement concretisation project and we have cleared all the doubts. We are doing this Bhoomi poojan after issuing work orders. It is a routine thing and a BMC function.”

Shiv Sena secretary Kiran Pawaskar said that these are local functions for BMC works.