‘Open loot of BMC funds’: Citing Express report, Opposition leaders slam Maharashtra govt, civic body

Further questioning the authorities, she said, “Where exactly did this money go? All cases should be investigated fairly and action should be taken. Congress will take legal action and take to the streets along with Mumbaikars.”

Alleging that it is a betrayal of Mumbaikars, Gaikwad said, “The formation of the Shinde-Fadnavis-Pawar government is through politics of extortion. There are attempts made daily to poach former corporators and opposition MLAs. However, since the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) MLAs are not responding, the government is trying to capture them through the ED on one side and the administrators and guardian ministers of the Municipal Corporation on the other side.”

Government gives funds to MLAs for development works and not as any favour, said Maharashtra Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe, adding, “People’s money must be given to the people. Not giving development funds to opposition MLAs is a form of depriving the people of that constituency from development.” He said that the people of Maharashtra will give a befitting reply to the ruling side in the coming elections.

Supriya Shrinate, national spokesperson of the Congress, posted on social media platform, X, “Over the past one year, Rs 500 crore has been distributed to MLAs from the ruling alliance. This is taxpayers’ money and by not distributing funds uniformly among the elected representatives, you are not just discriminating the opposition parties, but also the citizens of Mumbai.”

Priyanka Chaturvedi, Rajya Sabha MP and deputy leader from Shiv Sena (UBT) alleged the civic authorities of officiating corruption. In a social media post, Chaturvedi said, “No elected corporators to check on spending, to seek accountability… between two guardian ministers and the BMC chief, money is being splurged to help unconstitutional government’s MLAs, while totally disregarding the opposition MLAs. This is not just a shame but also open loot of BMC funds. This is officiating corruption by emptying BMC coffers to fund the greed of panaas khoke (50-crore) gang.”

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLA from Sharad Pawar faction, Jitendra Awhad, accused the authorities of doing discrimination and political favouritism.

“The current ruling administration is implying that if your constituency doesn’t have an MLA from the ruling party, then the existing civic infrastructure will not see any improvement,” Awhad said on X.

The Aam Aadmi Party termed the state government’s act as one of the worst scams in municipal history. “Let’s be clear, the Shinde Sena and the BJP have acted as if they own the BMC funds… This has robbed Mumbaikars of their rights and denied them of local development… it must be condemned in the strongest terms,” said Ruben Mascarenhas, spokes-person and working president of Aam Aadmi Party, Mumbai.

The Express investigation revealed that all the 21 MLAs from the ruling party have received money from the BMC corpus within weeks , while the proposals of 11 out of the 15 opposition MLAs were yet to be cleared.