Shiv Sena

Vivek Velankar

The saffron inclinations of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been made clear across many agendas — especially the fervently cited Ram Mandir issue — frequently brought to the fore by the actions of party members on various fronts, including the latest development in Mumbai on Tuesday. In an incident that sparked outrage, a Goregaon-based BJP member printed invitations for the inauguration of a new flyover in the area on April 30, titling it the Goregaon Ram Mandir Flyover — this despite the fact that thehas already named the amenity the Mrinal Gore Flyover, after the veteran socialist leader.Now, closer home, it is the turn of a Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) corporator to unilaterally saffronise official PMC signboards, exploiting the loophole of no official civic body policy for such signages. Sinhagad Road corporator Manjusha Nagpure had last year painted the boards in question in a vibrant saffron hue, clearly carrying the inscription ‘Jai Sri Ram’.When questioned, PMC additional municipal commissioner Rajendra Jagtap only said, “PMC has no specific policy about boards (size, colour, location) for displaying names of streets, chowks or areas.”Tilak Road ward officer Ravi Pawar elaborated, “PMC had placed the boards in the area last year. The local corporator, Nagpure, spent ward development funds of around Rs 3 lakh to change them. We cannot remove the boards, but we will hide objectionable matter if any.”Nagpure told Mirror, “The boards were placed by us last year. I did not mention my name according to the decision of party leaders, but I did get ‘Jai Sri Ram’ inscribed because we are his followers. I don’t understand why objection is being taken to this after so many months.” Interestingly, one of the boards happens to contain the bashful Nagpure’s name as well.Ironically, in 2013, politicians at an all-party leaders’ meeting had taken a unanimous decision to not place individual courtesies on name boards at various public amenities, as well as to standardise them. This, however, is clearly being ignored by some.Shankar Kemse, leader of the House in PMC, said, “No corporator has the right to misuse public money by mentioning his or her name on such boards. We have already discussed this at an allparty leaders’ meeting — only the PMC logo and ward number is allowed. If this is being flouted, it must be stopped.”Civic activist, who has long been pushing political leaders and the administration to frame a policy in this matter, said, “We have been pursuing this issue for more than a year. However, no one is serious about such a policy — neither politicians nor PMC. It is the taxpayers’ money that they are spending on such free publicity. Besides, what about the fact that the civic body subsequently has to use extra money and manpower to hide such inscriptions during polls? If they pass a policy, public funds will stop getting spent on such unproductive work.”