BMC commissioner hires bouncers for protection as tiffs between him and corporators hit a new low

Mayor Kishori Pednekar demands Mayor In Council system be re-introduced in BMC

@hepzia

Mumbai: The tiff between the executive and the corporators in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) took a new turn on August 11 with the municipal commissioner  Iqbal Singh Chahal hiring private bouncers to guard him right within the municipal headquarters. Raising objections to it, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the BMC Prabhakar Shinde wondered if the bouncers were meant for the commissioner to stonewall queries from the elected representatives on various policy issues in the corporation.

Stating that never in the history of the BMC, a commissioner had taken protection of bouncers, Shinde said that it reflected lack of faith on the part of Chahal on the BMC’s own security staff. “Are the elected representatives goons that the commissioner has to beef up his security this way,” he said. 

The Shiv Sena, which is the ruling party in the BMC, demanded that the state re-introduce the Mayor In Council (MIC) in the BMC. Mayor Kishori Pednekar has written to the chief minister Uddhav Thackeray with this demand. 

Currently, the mayor’s post is more of a ceremonial figurehead with the real power vested with the municipal commissioner. While, in the MIC system is more of a US-style of governance where the mayor would be all powerful and run the show in a city corporation.

Also Read: Opposition leaders protest commissioner’s VC attendance in BMC meeting

Addressing a webinar organised by Praja Foundation on Reimaging Mumbai Post Covid-19, Pednekar said: “The mayor needs to have much more powers, especially executive powers. And in crisis situations like the Covid, the mayor should have emergency powers like the municipal commissioner.” She said that most of the powers were vested with the municipal administration in the current system and the mayor did not have the necessary executive powers to get things done.

Stating that currently the MIC system was in practice only in a city in Rajasthan, she noted that though the mayor was expected to work in collaboration with the executive, the administration may not necessarily pay heed to their demands. She also noted that her own party, the Shiv Sena had introduced and quashed the Mayor-In-Council (MIC) system when it was in power in the state along with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

She said that people had certain expectations from the mayor of Mumbai and stated that she had already written to the chief minister Uddhav Thackeray in that regard. Pednekar also placed a premium on the fact that the person occupying the post should also be good enough to manage and run the system well.

Relations between the commissioner and opposition leaders are at a low of late with the later walking out of the group council’s meeting on August 10 in protest against Chahal attending it via Video Conferencing (VC). Meetings in the BMC have been in limbo due to the state lockdown during which the commissioner has been running the city without taking the elected representatives into confidence, the opposition leaders allege. The BMC on Tuesday issued a clarification that Chahal was just following the directives of the state to attend meetings via VC and that most of the meetings of BMC offices too were being conducted only on VC.