Government is on your side, CM tells tenants

Earlier at the meeting, the chief minister said that the joint select committee, which was giving final touches to the bill, had been directed to give a hearing to the representatives of tenants before finalising the new Act. He, however, added that the committee would listen to the landlords’ woes too.

The meeting was held at the CM’s official residence `Varsha’.The chief minister went on record saying that while due respect would be given to the SC directives inthis regard, the government was with the tenants.

Apart from Joshi, the meeting was addressed by Minister of State for Housing Raj Purohit, Minister for Cultural Affairs Pramod Navalkar, Education Minister Sudhir Joshi, Bharatiya Janata Party Mumbai unit president Kirit Somaiyya, MLA Chandrakant Padwal, Chairman of Repairs Board Madhu Chavan, Housing Secretary V P Raja and Law and Judiciary Secretary S K Shah.But it was undoubtedly the presence of Kirit Somaiyya that was noticed most. The tenants in a letter addressed to the chief minister have accused Somaiyya of interrupting several times the dialogue between them and the CM.

Deora, on the other hand, in his letter to Gill sent this afternoon has said, “Mr Kirit Somaiyya being a politically “interested” party and propagandist of his party in the election had no business to be present at a conference intended for only the tenants. I urge upon you to please restrain the chief minister and his government immediately from such abuse ofoffice.”

According to some tenants who attended the meeting there was another reason why they had objected to Somaiyya’s presence. “The BJP runs its party office from a premises owned by the president of the Property Owners’ Association that was party to the petition before the Supreme Court.”

In a letter to Joshi, the Federation of the Old Buildings Co-operative Housing Society has complained that in addition to Somaiyya’s interference, they were disappointed that most of their questions on relevant points such as the government’s position on the Act and on Para-IV of the government’s Review Petition before the Supreme Court met with evasive answers.

They have also charged Somaiyya with vested interest in the subject in his capacity as the BJP Mumbai president as also someone who has “constantly empathised with property owners and landlords.

“In short, to us, the tenants, the entire exercise this morning appeared to be directed at being a pro-landlord affair without giving proper opportunityfor the tenants to be heard,” the federation said.

Both Somaiyya and the chief minister were unavailable for comment.