PMC staff, MVA leaders agitate against each other over Ram-Shinde face-off
Elected representatives and officials must work together. Disagreements should be resolved through dialogue, not pressure tactics, says official
A fresh row erupted at the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) office on Thursday as the civic administration and Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) leaders agitated against each other over Wednesday’s confrontation between municipal commissioner Naval Kishore Ram and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) leader Kishore Shinde.
All department heads and staff at PMC staged a protest inside the headquarters, expressing support for the commissioner after Shinde allegedly used abusive language and threatened Ram after forcibly entering his office.
Following the civic body’s action against Shinde, leaders from the MVA alliance, including the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar faction), Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT), came out in support of the MNS leader and condemned the administration’s move.
MVA leaders Prashant Jagtap, Arvind Shinde, Gajanan Thurkude and Sainath Babar unanimously said that it was wrong to treat a former elected representative this way. Shinde had gone to the commissioner’s office to raise a serious issue - alleged theft at the municipal commissioner’s official residence. Instead of addressing the issue, the administration acted against him, they said.
PMC’s city engineer Prashant Waghmare, addressing the standoff, said, “Elected representatives and officials must work together. Disagreements should be resolved through dialogue, not pressure tactics. The municipal corporation belongs to the citizens, not to politicians or officials.”
Some political leaders are now trying to mediate and defuse the tension between the civic administration and the opposition parties.
For the past few weeks, MVA leaders have been accusing the municipal administration of working under pressure from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). They claimed that the civic body is selectively executing projects backed by BJP leaders and even alleged that the recent delimitation process was influenced by the ruling party.
