BJP minister unveils registrar office at Mira Rd

Sena skips event, 70,000 bogus co-op institutes in state, says Chandrakant Patil

“As many as 70,000 co-operative units in the state are bogus,” revealed state cooperation minister Chandrakant Patil while inaugurating the Deputy Registrar office for co-operative housing societies in Mira Road’s Ram Nagar area on Sunday.

“Such co-operative institutes are floated only for elections wherein fake voters cast their votes in favour of politically sponsored panels with a sole intention of maintaining a sway over some areas. Notices have been issued and the bogus non-functional ones will soon be weeded out,” said Patil who, in his capacity as PWD minister, revealed plans to pump Rs 8,000 crore more to undertake a massive road development project.

Mayor Geeta Jain, legislator Narendra Mehta, officials Jyoti Latkar and Dilip Udhan were present on the occasion. However, conspicuous by their absence were Shiv Sena leaders Pratap Sarnaik and Pravin Patil. Miffed at being sidelined by the BJP, the Sena had boycotted the event. The state government was the official host to the event but it has been alleged that Mehta had taken over the reins of arrangements of the entire function keeping their junior ally in the dark.

“The MBMC gave space and required infrastructure for the office. However, names of the deputy mayor and standing committee chief were deliberately dropped. It seemed more like a BJP sponsored event than an official protocol function,” said Sarnaik.

Interestingly, guardian minister Eknath Shinde, under whose aegis the inaugural ceremony was supposed to be held, also stayed away exposing the rift between the saffron partners.

With more than 6,000 housing societies the twin-city has a population of more than 14 lakh. However, the region was still devoid of the much needed deputy registrar office forcing locals to travel all the way to Thane for society related work.