Both parties have put up billboards adjacent to each other on Suhasini Pawaskar Road, Dahisar (East), claiming to be the force behind the repair work there
The most common political tug-of-war is over taking credit for an act. Earlier, it was through word-of-mouth, now its about what meets the eye.u00a0Lately, political parties have turned to putting up banners and hoardings to pat their own backs. This time, banners by Shiv Sena and Congress have been put up side by side on Suhasini Pawaskar Road, Dahisar (East). Both rivals are claiming to be the force behind the ongoing concretisation of the road. The road falls under Ward R-North.
The hoardings of Congress and Shiv Sena displayed side by side claiming credit for the ongoing project
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Initially, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) passed the concretisation plan of the 350-meter-long road in 2007. However, sewerage lines had to be laid under the road and thus the concretisation was postponed. Two years later, in 2009, the BMC’s Sewerage Projects Department permitted the laying of sewerage lines. Now, the sewerage lines have been laid over almost 250 meters and the concretisation work has finally begun.
The site on Suhasini Pawaskar Road where the concretisation work is going on
However, with the good news comes the credit war. After the go-ahead was given to the concretisation of the road late last year, Congress inaugurated the project on January 4, 2013, and put up a banner on Suhasini Pawaskar Road claiming credit for the work. The banner also points out that if anyone wants to know how this work was started and who got all the clearance and approvals, they can contact Congress’ Ex-Municipal Corporator Rajendraprasad Chaubey, as he has all the papers.
Chaubey, whose tenure got over in 2012, claims to have all documents regarding the project that point towards how he alone followed up on the project since 2007 and got it passed with an estimated budget of Rs 3 crore.u00a0On the other hand, Shiv Sena also claims that the project was the brainchild of their earlier Corporator Bhavna Bhagat, and since the last ten months, Udesh Patekar, the current Sena Corporator, has taken over the responsibility and is seeing the project through.
They also claim of being in possession of all the paperwork and letters regarding the project. They had organized the Bhoomipoojan on December 30 and put up their banner. “I have all the relevant papers with me and have been following it up with the civic administration since many years,” said Chaubey. “Now the Sena’s Corporator, who has just started his term in this area, is taking all the credit by inaugurating the road’s work and displaying banners in the area.”
However, Patekar begged to differ. “Even we have all the letters with us. We just haven’t advertised about it on the banner. The earlier Corporator of this area had taken the task and I have followed up, hence we did the bhoomipujan.” The traffic on the Suhasini Pawaskar Road has been diverted to the next lane till the work is on.
Ignorance is bliss!
G M Agarwal, Deputy Chief Engineer (Roads) of western suburbs, said, “I am not aware of who followed it up with the administration. We got the work order on December 14, 2012, and the traffic permission on January 3, 2013. Now the concretisation work on that road is on and it will take another eight months to end.”u00a0
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