Mumbai Police's EOW must probe BMC road contracts under Eknath Shinde government: Aaditya Thackeray

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Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray on Saturday called for an inquiry by the Mumbai Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) into the alleged irregularities in the contracts awarded by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for road construction during the previous Eknath Shinde government.

According to news agency PTI, while addressing a press conference, the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) legislator demanded that Shinde, along with Deepak Kesarkar and Mangal Prabhat Lodha, who were the guardian ministers for Mumbai city and Mumbai suburbs, respectively, be excluded from the new government, as the road contracts were awarded during their tenure as ministers.

Shinde is currently serving as the Deputy Chief Minister (CM) in the Devendra Fadnavis government, which was sworn in on December 5 following the Mahayuti's landslide victory in the November 20 assembly elections.

According to PTI, Thackeray alleged cartelisation of contracts when Shinde was CM and handled the Urban Development portfolio. "The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) has now demanded an SIT (Special Investigation Team) probe into the contracts awarded for road construction. We demand an EOW probe into this," Thackeray said.

BMC was controlled by the undivided Shiv Sena from 1997 to 2022. However, the civic elections have been overdue since early 2022, and the Mumbai civic body is currently under a state-appointed administrator.

Referring to a news report, Thackeray claimed BMC plans to levy a user fee per flat for waste collection, which he labelled an attempt to "loot Mumbai". "This service [of garbage collection] was free when we were in power [in BMC]. The civic body has an obligation to provide this as a free service. This is an attempt to loot Mumbai through a user fee," Thackeray asserted, according to PTI.

Meanwhile, another Shiv Sena (UBT) Rajya Sabha lawmaker Sanjay Raut targeted the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra and said the party should organise a procession of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and build a temple dedicated to them.

"First of all, a procession of the Chief Minister will be taken out there [in Nagpur]. I think that before taking out the procession of the CM, they should take out a procession of EVMs, and in the first cabinet meeting, they should make a decision to construct a temple of EVMs in front of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) headquarters," Raut quipped, according to news agency ANI.

The Maharashtra Assembly Election 2024 witnessed a decisive victory for the Mahayuti alliance, winning 235 seats in the 288-member lower house. The results marked a significant milestone for BJP, which emerged as the single-largest party with 132 seats. Its allies Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party also made notable gains, with 57 and 41 seats, respectively.

(With PTI and ANI inputs)