With eye on BMC Polls, Shiv Sena, Congress and SP oppose demolition of slums in Mumbai

It is a fact that people from the slum come out in large numbers to vote and it is this vote bank which more or less decides the fate of a particular party. With BMC Elections 2017 just about 4 months away, all political parties are trying to make this vote bank happy. In a bid to protect this vote bank of theirs, the Shiv Sena, Congress and SP have challenged the BMC’s decision to raze all the illegal structures in slum areas which are above 14 feet height.

 

The Shiv Sena demanded that all single-storey illegal structures be exempted from demolition. During the standing committee meeting on Wednesday, the leader of the House and Sena leader Trushna Vishwasrao called for a point of order and stated that instead of demolishing structures which exceed 14 feet in height, the corporation should not demolish slums where structures are single storey. Her stand was supported by the Congress and the Samajwadi Party who argued that the civic body was biased against the slum population.

 

“The civic body should take action against all illegal construction instead of only targeting the poor people. Why the BMC have such double standards and why doesn’t it take similar action against buildings where the elite reside?” he asked.

 

Corporators from BJP and MNS, however, supported the civic body’s decision. While Sandeep Deshpande of MNS spoke out in support of the municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta and stated that the civic body cannot adopt isolated standards for slums due to political interests, Manoj Kotak of BJP addressed the Sena corporators and said, “It is unacceptable to pressurise the commissioner to stop demolition of illegal structures when he is working as per the state government-approved norms.”

 

Taking note of the stand put forth by corporators of various parties, the civic chief Ajoy Mehta made certain relaxations about the demolition action to be taken against slums.