Aaditya takes a dig at BJP over ‘mafia raj’ remark

MUMBAI: Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray on Friday took a dig at BJP, which has been levelling ‘mafia raj’ allegations of against Shiv Sena. In the morning, he tweeted, “Mumbai mein mafia, Nagpur mein Maaf-kiya. Contractors blacklisted by BMC get road contracts in Nagpur.”
The BJP-ruled Nagpur Municipal Corporation awarded two of the four concrete road projects to RPS Infra Projects though it has been banned by BMC for poor quality road work.The firm is among six against which BMC had lodged an FIR under under section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code in the Rs 352-crore road scam.
On Thursday, mayor Snehal Ambekar, who is from Sena, had tried to deflect graft charges by BJP by shifting the responsibility to BMC chief Ajoy Mehta, demanding that he reveal the truth. In a letter to Mehta she had said, “Presently, there’s a lot of discussion about goons and politics and recently the chief minister’s photograph with a goon had caused a flutter. After taking charge as administrative head in BMC, for the first time, some people have been making serious allegations of mafia raj and dalal raj. So, kindly bring the truth before Mumbaikars.”
Congress city chief Sanjay Nirupam said the mayor’s letter to the BMC commissioner is a “form of hypocrisy” by her party, the Sena. “There is corruption in every civic departm-ent, right under the mayor’s nose. Scams after scams have been coming out since the past few months—road, desilting and tablet. This is only a stunt to misguide the public ahead of the civic elections.”
A few months ago, BJP MP Kirit Somaiya had claimed that BMC was “in the gr-ip of a powerful mafia” controlled by “a saheb from Bandra and his PA” and there is widespread corruption in it.