Three days after Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray paid municipal commissioner Swadhin Kshatriya a visit to lay down his demands, the Congress’
MP for Mumbai Northwest Mr Gurudas Kamat visited the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s headquarters on Friday. He met Mr Kshatriya with a list of demands for the city, including a solar energy plan to which the commissioner gave a wholehearted thumbs-up.
Mr Kamat, who is also minister of state for communications and information technology, first set about clearing certain misconceptions, and emphasised that he was not following in Raj’s footsteps. “I had spoken to Mr Kshatriya 15 days ago about meeting to discuss certain issues. We were supposed to meet last Saturday, but since the BMC observes a holiday on that day, we postponed our meeting,” said Mr Kamat after his meeting with the municipal commissioner on Friday. He added, with his tongue embedded firmly in his cheek, “Maybe Raj was inspired by my plans for a meeting to set up his own.”
Among the ideas that the Congress MP brought to the table were a clearance of plans of the Maharashtra Housing and Development Authority to facilitate redevelopment, and utilising the 2.5 floor space index (FSI) that had been assured by the chief minister in the past. He also suggested adopting Delhi’s pattern of recycling used water for construction purposes and the desiltation of all reservoirs and lakes. Another issue that Mr Kamat raised was that of playgrounds and recreational grounds that had been sold off to various parties to set up private clubs, which was a direct dig at the Shiv Sena’s Matoshree Club in Jogeshwari.
However, the idea that got a very positive response from Mr Kshatriya, was that of utilising solar power in housing societies and using the electricity thereby generated for staircase lights, public area lights, street lamps and even water heaters. Additionally, he said that permission must not be given to the construction of buildings, unless they have plans to set these up. “Mr Kshatriya was very positive about this idea,” Mr Kamat said.
He took another dig at Raj when asked if he was concerned about the growing bonhomie between the MNS chief and his cousin Uddhav — Raj had praised Uddhav’s photography recently — and whether a Sena-MNS alliance would augur badly for his party in the civic elections next year. “Uddhav can take all the photos he wants and Raj can follow him with reels and batteries. The Congress will take on all comers,” said Mr Kamat.