Cong prepares to go solo in BMC polls

The campaign for the BMC poll will highlight cases of corruption and loot, said party spokesperson Sachin Sawant

MUMBAI: With the Thackeray cousins likely to maintain distance from the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance in the forthcoming local body polls, the Mumbai Congress has started preparations to contest the crucial Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls on its own.

BMC headquarter (Hindustan Times)

The party on Friday launched a campaign titled ‘Mahayuti Sarkar Mast, Mumbaikar Trast’ to highlight the plight of Mumbaikars under a purportedly corrupt regime.

“While the BJP is in power, public money in the BMC is being looted,” alleged Mumbai Congress chief Varsha Gaikwad. “Rules and conditions are deliberately framed to ensure that only favoured contractors get tenders.” She also alleged that the urban development department had been converted into an “urban disaster department”.

The campaign for the BMC poll will highlight cases of corruption and loot, said party spokesperson Sachin Sawant.

As an example, Sawant spoke about the tender for a 42-km pipeline from Tunnel Shaft at Gundavali to Wye Junction at Modaksagar which was later extended to 50 km.

“The conditions of bidding for the tender were such that only two favoured contractor companies of the BMC could get the deal,” he said.

One criteria said the fabrication unit for pipes must be within a 150-km radius of the project site, Sawant said, and alleged the condition was included because only two pipe-manufacturing companies—Vishal Enterprises and Samruddhi—fell within this radius, and whichever contractor had signed an MoU with these companies would be awarded the project.

“In the past too, a controversial project with similar conditions was awarded to APCO, a contractor that had MoUs with the same two pipe manufacturers,” he said. The only two criteria in such projects should be completing the work on time and maintaining quality, he said.