ALMOST TWO years after being charged with abetting the suicide of builder Suraj Parmar, three of the four corporators accused in the case got re-elected to the Thane Municipal Corporation. The trio — Hanumant Jagdale, Vikrant Chavan and Najib Mulla — called it their “big win”. All the four accused in the Parmar suicide case — Chavan, Jagdale, Mulla and Sudhakar Chavan — had contested from different wards in Thane. Jagdale and Mulla were candidates of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Vikrant is from Congress, and Sudhakar is an Independent candidate. Even though three of them managed to win the civic polls, Sudhakar failed to get public support. Four-time corporator Mulla claims he and the other accused corporators were victims of vendetta. “They (investigators) have failed to prove that we had done any wrong. We had raised valid issues against irregularities in Parmar’s projects on the Floor of the House. A person intending to blackmail someone would not have brought his allegations on the record, which we did. Parmar’s note even mentions names of top civic officials, why no action was taken against them,” he said. Watch What Else Is Making News “The fact that I have won proves that people of Thane have trust in me. Now, even the public knows that I was falsely implicated. The same will be proved in the court. Some people did try to make Parmar’s case an election issue against me, but it didn’t work. People here know my work, they supported me and results are before everyone today,” he added. Mulla won from Ward 10, Rabodi, which is a Muslim dominated area of Thane. He received 9,400 votes and won with a margin of 6,000. Vikrant, who contested from Ward number 7 in Raymonds, Samta Nagar, said, “I won this election, which clearly points at the work that I have done. I am not a criminal. I cannot be the reason for someone’s death, or else, no one would have voted for me. I have won with a lead of 1,500 votes.” Vikrant Chavan received 10,500 votes. Jagdale, who won from Ward 6 in Lokamanya Nagar, said, “People of Thane are with us. The case was publicised all over the state. Still people of Thane decided to vote for us.”
