Thane, Oct 13 (PTI) The Shiv Sena (UBT) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena on Monday held a massive protest against what it claimed was rampant corruption and mismanagement in the Thane Municipal Corporation.
While the Nationalist Congress Party (SP) took part in the “dhadak morcha”, which began at Gadkari Rangayatan and ended at the TMC headquarters, the Congress was conspicuous by its absence.
Thane is the stronghold of the Shiv Sena led by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
Slamming Shinde, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and former Lok Sabha MP Rajan Vichare said the deputy CM was leading a group of “traitors”.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led party’s Thane unit chief Kedar Dighe said the protest morcha was just the beginning of several events that will be organised jointly with Raj Thackeray’s MNS.
“Both parties have come together for good,” added MNS Thane unit chief Ravindra More.
The goal was to rid Thane of corruption, said More’s colleague Avinash Jadhav.
NCP (SP) MLA and former minister Jitendra Awhad told reporters that a BJP MLA from the region had called TMC as the “seat of corruption”.
If Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis does not want to believe the opposition parties, he must take into account what his own party colleagues are saying about Thane’s civic body, Awhad said.
The protest route saw heavy presence of police to ensure law and order.
While the Sena (UBT) and MNS have come closer over the past four to five months after nearby two decades of rivalry, a section of the Congress is opposed to any truck with Raj Thackeray.
Later in the day, the Thane unit of the Congress said it would “blacken the faces” of corrupt civic officials.
The TMC administration is shielding corrupt officials and stalling action against unauthorized constructions despite court orders, Thane city Congress president Vikrant Chavan alleged at a press conference.
“The administration is cheating the people of Thane. If the administration supports corrupt officials, we will blacken their faces,” Chavan warned.
He also cited the arrest of TMC deputy commissioner Shankar Patole and two others in a Rs 25 lakh bribery case being probed by the Anti Corruption Bureau.
Patole, who was heading the TMC’s Encroachment Control and Eviction Department, was arrested during a raid carried out by the ACB at the Thane civic headquarters on October 1. A real estate developer, Abhijit Kadam, who holds development rights for a plot in Vishnu Nagar in Naupada, had accused Patole of seeking a hefty bribe for removing an encroachment on his premises.
“Patole’s case has exposed deep-rooted corruption within the civic body’s encroachment department. If he is not dismissed from service, then the Congress will file a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) to ensure accountability,” Chavan said.
Patole is currently under suspension. PTI COR BNM
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