Sena-controlled BMC gave contracts to tainted firms: BJP

Firing another salvo at the estranged ally Shiv Sena, BJP today alleged that the city civic body BMC gave road repair contracts to tainted firms.
The Income Tax department in 2010-11 had raised objections to and even probed a certain contractor which continued to get road repair contracts despite being blacklisted in road repair scam, BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandari said here.
"The IT department found that...Had been indulging in giving bogus bills to contractors without even supplying them with materials like steel, cement and dumpers. The state Sales Tax and Value Added Tax department's have declared this contractor to be a Hawala dealer," he said.

Because of whose blessings this blacklisted contractor was still getting road repair contracts, he asked.
"The IT department had recommended to the BMC to take action against the contractor and wanted to know why no action was being taken against him," Bhandari said.
Further, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India in its 2006 report had pulled up the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation over purchase of an imported pothole repairing machine, it said.

What happened to this imported 'Jetpatcher' machine, Bhandari sought to know. "They should reveal how much money the Sena-ruled BMC spent to purchase the machinery and whether it had secured a guarantee of pothole-free roads and how much money was spent on the machinery and repairing the potholed roads till 2017," Bhandari said.

On Sena president Uddhav Thackeray's charge that BJP was bringing back "Emergency" by demanding a three-day ban on Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' in the run-up to February 21 BMC elections, Bhandari said 'those who had supported the 1975 Emergency or did not oppose it' had no right to talk about it.
"BJP has merely asked the State Election Commission to ensure equal treatment for all the political parties. Sena itself states that Saamana is its mouthpiece," he said.