Sena’s illegal hoardings hit Sena-ruled BMC hard ………..Yogesh.Pawar
More than Rs 1 lakh spent daily to remove illegal political banners, many of them devoted to Sena leaders. Mayor’s defence? Everyone defaces city, not just us
More than Rs 1 lakh spent daily to remove illegal political banners, many of them devoted to Sena leaders. Mayor’s defence? Everyone defaces city, not just us
Political observers have been cynical about the BMC decision to penalise politicians for putting up illegal hoardings across the city. And they have their reasons.
On June 14, the Bombay High Court’s Aurangabad bench holds that any political leader, whose picture appears on illegal hoardings or banners, can be prosecuted. If leaders, who are “eulogised” by party workers, are prosecuted for hoardings that mar the city landscape, it will act as an effective deterrent, the bench says in the judgment.
On June 17, following the HC directive, BMC says it will prosecute political leaders and parties that deface city; the HC recently ruled that a political leader who appears on an illegal hoarding can be held responsible for it.
By July 27, the Sena-ruled BMC has forgotten its promise. Between Andheri and Bandra alone there are 1,356 banners put by political parties — the maximum, 987 by Shiv Sainiks wishing their leader Uddhav Thackeray on his 50th birthday.
A senior political analyst questioned, “How can the civic body take action against its own people? And except for very feeble protests by other parties, everyone wants to keep quiet as they are all guilty of defacing the city with banners or hoardings for their leaders.”
In his opinion, there is little hope for change. “Political outfits did not spare a tragedy like 26/11 and found out a way to exploit the abiding sentiments, indulging in a banner war of sorts to find some way of highlighting themselves and their parties. The crackdown on these hoardings has to be a serious one,” he said.
Not surprisingly, the BMC does not seem too serious about cracking down on the illegal hoardings.
Mayor Shraddha Jadhav in fact went to the extent of saying that the BMC has not passed any such order yet. “As far as I know, we have sent it to the advocate general and he has to yet tell us how to go about implementing the HC directive,” she told Mumbai Mirror and refused to accept that the civic body had, in fact, passed such an order after the HC ruling — even after she was reminded of the date.
When asked why her party the Shiv Sena couldn’t take the initiative since it was ruling the BMC, she said, “This is something that will have to be decided by a general consensus.” Asked to comment on why Sena hoardings have been dominating the cityscape, she said, “Surely, it’s not as if the Shiv Sena alone is defacing the city. Everybody does it.”
NCP group leader in the civic body, Niyaz Wanu, says he’s not surprised. “Sena is built on the edifice of political sycophancy. In a party where it is still commonplace for even senior leaders to touch Bal Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray’s feet every time they meet them, this is only expected,” he said.
While private parties putting up banners bring in revenue to the BMC, political hoardings, put up willfully by party workers, are a strain on civic resources. D S Kharat superintendent of licenses, said, “Instead of earning revenues for the banners and hoardings, we end up spending substantially to get them removed.”
Another senior official, said, “From January to June 2010, BMC removed 59,170 hoardings, posters, cut-outs, flags and wall paintings. Approximately Rs 1.2 lakh is spent daily for this as BMC has to deploy a vehicle and four employees in each ward every day to bring them down. In the same period 18,412 commercial posters, banners and hoardings earned the BMC only Rs 27.5 lakh.”
* One June 17, BMC said it will prosecute leaders and parties that deface city. By July 27, the Sena-ruled BMC has forgotten its promise. Between Andheri and Bandra alone there are 1,356 banners put by political parties – the maximum, 987 by Shiv Sainiks wishing their leader Uddhav on his 50th birthday