Thane mayor writes to CM about civic chief's insubordination

Thane Mayor Meenakshi Shinde has complained to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis against the city civic commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal over his alleged insubordination.

Shinde, in her letter written to Fadnavis on Tuesday, claimed Jaiswal did not give much importance to the Thane Municipal Corporation's (TMC) general body meetings and also asked his officials not to attend them.

"He attends specific meetings with vested interest. He also failed to attend the TMC's flag hoisting functions on January 26 and August 15," she said in the letter.

She requested Fadnavis to direct Jaiswal to attend TMC's general body meetings and desist from abusing the elected representatives and making allegations against them.

Notably, some members of the TMC's general body last week proposed a no-confidence motion against Jaiswal and requested the mayor to call a special meeting for it.

The general body expressed unhappiness over some of the proposals of the civic administration, alleging irregularities in them.

Earlier, Jaiswal, who has completed over four years in office, in a letter written to the mayor last Saturday, listed his achievements and said he was working for the development of the city and its citizens.

In the letter, marked as confidential but leaked on social media, he said the corporators were opposing proposals of the administration and levelling allegations against it.

Jaiswal said he was "hurt" by such an attitude of the corporators.

He asked the mayor to call a meeting and let the TMC's general body decide on the proposed no-confidence motion against him before the announcement of the model code of conduct for the upcoming state Assembly elections.