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Manohar Joshi overrules Thane civic body's ouster of honest commissioner

Thane Municipal Commissioner T Chandrashekhar will not be transferred from his post, Maharashtra Chief Minister Manohar Joshi clarified today.

The state government was determined not to take any action against Chandrashekhar as proposed by the TMC through a resolution, taking into account the welfare work done by him for the public, the chief minister said.

The chief minister, while reacting to the TMC resolution passed against the Thane commissioner, said the state government does not agree with the resolution of no-confidence motion passed by the TMC yesterday.

The decision of the government will have the support of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray also, he added.

Chandrashekhar has won the hearts of the people through his honest work, as a result of which he will continue to be the TMC commissioner, he added.

Yesterday, Chandrashekhar was removed from office by the general body of the corporation at a special meeting, after a nine-hour-long sitting.

The ruling Shiv Sena and opposition Congress corporators joined hands in the single point agenda and ousted him from the corporation and adopted a resolution to that effect.

The Sena's partner in the corporation, Bharatiya Janata Party, voted against the resolution which was introduced by the leader of the house Rajan Vichare and seconded by the leader of the opposition Manoj Shinde.

Mayor Premsingh Rajput was in the chair and Chandrashekhar himself was not present at the meeting, with his deputy B R Pokharakar in the commissioner's chair.

In the 95-member house, 91 members took part in the voting for the resolution to remove him from office. While 80 corporators voted in favour, 11 members, all from the BJP, voted against the resolution. The BJP has been always in favour of the commissioner.

Since the last four months, the chasm between the commissioner and the corporators has widened and matters became worse when the commissioner, after the Sai Raj house crash, declared that he had the list of 40 corporators who were directly or indirectly connected with unauthorised constructions in the city.

His statement -- that henceforth, at this rate, the general body will have to be held in jail -- added fuel to fire and the corporators were terribly annoyed over the same.

Later, last week's action of the commissioner, of razing the bungalows at the picturesque Yeoor Hills and the manner in which the compound wall of the transport committee chairman Madan Mantri was razed on which the pictures of Bal Thackeray, Manohar Joshi and Sena district chief Anand Dighe were drawn, made matters worse.

At the special meeting convened yesterday, almost all the party corporators cursed the commissioner, whom they once honoured for his good work.

In their marathon speech the members condemned the commissioner for neglecting the work in the wards as a result of which the corporators had to face the citizens' ire.

He had only paid attention to the road widening work, and other civic works suffered despite the fact that the corporators reminded him several times, they said.

The special general meeting was actually convened to discuss providing civic amenities to the rural region of the corporation limits.

But the meeting discussed at length the failure of the administration to provide civic amenities to the rural region.

The corporators utilised the occasion to make a scathing attack on the municipal commissioner.

They said the works under the corporators funds had not been started as yet.

A note made by the commissioner justifying that enough work had been done in the rural region was presented in the meeting, which was totally dismissed by the corporators.

In his speech Sena whip A Save said the commissioner had all along done nothing but humiliate the corporators.

The leader of the house, in his resolution, said the serious feelings of all the corporators, insults to the corporators, and the neglect of the work in their wards, and taking into account all these under the BPMC Act, the commissioner was being removed from office. Without waiting for the minutes of the meeting, he should be removed from office once the general body decides, the leader of the house said in the resolution.

The resolution was moved under Section 36 of the BPMC Act 1949. The copies of the resolution were faxed to Chief Minister Manohar Joshi and Urban Development Secretary Nandlal.

UNI

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