BJP opposes Gymkhana for BMC officials at Mahalaxmi

Instead the ruling government wants it reserved for Mayor’s bungalow

From BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation to the state level, Shiv Sena (SS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are ready to pull down one another. Now it is the BJP Corporators opposing the Sena plans to reserve plot for constructing a gymkhana for BMC officials at Mahalaxmi.

The BJP on Wednesday opposed the proposal to build a Gymkhana near Mahalaxmi race course in the standing committee meeting. They demanded instead the plot should be reserved for the Mayor’s bungalow. However, Sena the ruling party claimed, called the BJP's opposition nautanki, (drama). Sena corporators accused BJP of allowing former Additional Municipal Commissioner (AMC) Pallavi Darade to continue to stay in the Malabar Hill bungalow.

“These are political tactics, the BJP is playing to allow Pallavi to continue to live in that municipal bungalow,” cried Sena corporators.

The corporation wants to construct a Gymkhana for civic officials on this Mahalaxmi plot. A budget provision of Rs 5 crore was allotted from the budget of this fiscal year 2018-19. The entire project cost is expected to be Rs 45 crore.

Taking advantage of the Mayor’s residence issue, which has become a bone of contention between the two alliance parties, BJP has now demanded the BMC use this plot to construct a bungalow for the Mayor. Manoj Kotak, the Group Leader (GL) of BJP in the BMC said, “It is an ideal location for mayor's bungalow as it is centrally located. The corporators from central and western suburbs can easily come to the Mayor’s residence for meetings.”

Another senior BJP corporator and Member of Standing Committee Prabhakar Shinde the administration should clarify on how they are planning to construct a gymkhana on playground reserved plot.

“The plot is earmarked for PG in Development Plan(DP)1991 and also in DP 2034, therefore as the role of civic administration is suspicious pertaining to change of reservation the proposal should not be approved,” added Shinde.

The ruling party Sena in BMC on the basis of voting approved the proposal. While Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) corporators remained silent during the chaos. Also, as Sena chairman Ramesh Korgaonkar of the Standing Committee did voting on the proposal twice, angry BJP boycott the committee meeting and accused Sena for conducting the business of the meeting wrongly. Meanwhile, Yashwant Jadhav the group leader of Sena taunted BJP for doing nautanki. He said BJP does not want the Mayor's residence to be in the Malabar Hill bungalow, therefore, BJP is playing political gimmick.