Election to the Mumbai civic physique, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), will be held subsequent yr in January-February if the pandemic disaster is underneath management, Mayor Kishori Pednekar stated on Tuesday. If the scenario doesn’t enhance adequately, the polls will be postponed, she added.
Pednekar’s assertion got here hours after the BJP’s Mumbai unit alleged the ruling Shiv Sena was conspiring to postpone the elections to the Mumbai civic physique, due subsequent February, citing the pandemic scenario and risk of a 3rd wave. Party chief Ashish Shelar stated the Sena was making an attempt to get an extension to the present governing physique of the BMC in order that it might obtain a “lower” in the Rs 20,000 crore tender to be floated for setting up a sewage treatment plant.
The Bandra west MLA also alleged prevalence of “cut (money)” observe for tenders underneath the watch of the Sena which is the ruling occasion in the BMC for almost three a long time.
“The BJP is towards permitting any extension to the present governing physique of the BMC,” he said. The Sena and the BJP, which were ruling partners in Maharashtra from 2014 to 2019, had contested the Mumbai civic polls held in February 2017, separately.
In the 227-member BMC, the Sena has 97 corporators and the BJP 83. The BJP, however, has made its intentions clear to step up its challenge in the 2022 BMC elections to oust the Sena.
“If the BMC elections are announced the next year, the BJP will contest as per the given framework and adhere to the COVID-19 protocol,” Shelar, a former minister in the Devendra Fadnavis cupboard, stated.
Stating that the Sena has betrayed the residents of Mumbai which suffers due to water-logging virtually each monsoon, Shelar stated, “The occasion (Sena) promised that it gained’t permit inundation of Mumbai, but it surely has not arrange flood gates in all of the essential factors in town.”
In a veiled swipe at Worli MLA Aaditya Thackeray and his Chief Minister father Uddhav Thackeray, Shelar said all the developments are taking place in Worli only.
“The BMC is prioritising and concentrating works only in select areas in the city. The works like (installing) powerful pumps to drain out rainwater and replacing old pipes with new ones have taken place in Kalanagar only,” he alleged. The personal residence of Sena president Thackeray is positioned in the Kalaganar space in suburban Bandra.
The Shiv Sena heads the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) authorities in Maharashtra with the NCP and the Congress. The BJP is the biggest opposition occasion in the state Legislative Assembly.
(With PTI inputs)
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