Electrified by rising - ­­­­and allegedly inflated - power bills, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has called for protests against the Adani Electricity Mumbai Limited (AEML) on Saturday. The protests, to be held at the Borivli office of the power company, will be the first political demonstration against AEML since the company took over electricity distribution from the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Infrastructure.

While MNS has alleged a '40 to 50 per cent' rise in power bills and unit consumption, AEML has dismissed the allegations as baseless. Senior MNS leader Avinash Abhyankar claimed that the party has cases to substantiate their claim of citizens receiving inflated power bills from AEML. "One can understand a fluctuation in bills and unit consumption to a certain extent. But a 40 to 50 per cent sudden rise is something we're not willing to buy," he said. The alleged inflation has plagued several consumers from the western suburbs for the past couple of months. In fact, some of them are even claiming that the bill amount was much lower during the Reliance tenure.