Change of guard at BMC's statutory committees, Lande dropped

A new set of chairpersons of statutory bodies of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was elected unopposed for one year Wednesday, with the BJP, Shiv Sena's ally, choosing not to occupy any of these posts.

Except Yashwant Jadhav, whom the Sena renominated as standing committee chairman, the other three key panels got new heads.

Anil Patankar was elected as BEST committee chairman, Anjali Naik as education committee head and Sadanand Parab as improvement committee chairman.

All of them were Sena nominees.

Parab replaced Dilip Lande, who had drawn flak for his decision to allow deletion of reservations on certain plots in the city on the ground that they had been encroached upon.

City BJP chief Ashish Shelar refused to comment as to why the BJP did not seek any of the four key posts.

A senior corporator from the BJP, however, said, "Our leadership has decided to continue to act as watchdogs, so we will keep a hawk's eye on the administration.