Nagpur: Amid the telling silence from the ruling party leaders including those holding ranks in state cabinet, over the issue of 26 corporators defaulting in electricity bills, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has now raised its voice. The party has now warned power franchisee SNDL that if it did not disconnect 26 defaulting corporators within 48 hours, the party activists would launch an agitation.
An AAP delegation led by Jammu Anand met SNDL officials and pointed out that while the franchisee disconnected common consumers within hours of expiry of last date of payment of power bills, the corporators were being spared. AAP activists demanded that power supply to any consumer should not be snapped until the corporators had been disconnected.
AAP had earlier met municipal commissioner Ashwin Mudgal and demanded disqualification of corporators for non-payment of power bills. These corporators had stated in their election affidavits that they did not owe anything to banks, government and semi-government institutions. However, the fact is otherwise.
Later, Anand told the media that SNDL had disconnected many citizens for non-payment of bills even though their default amount was very less. “Some corporators have not paid bills running into thousands. Why are they being spared? Are they close relatives of SNDL officials?” he said.
SNDL has been unable to explain why the corporators were being spared. SNDL spokesperson had earlier told TOI that the corporators could not be disconnected because of political pressure, without elaborating.
Even though energy minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule is aware of this fact, he is not exerting pressure on SNDL to disconnect the defaulting corporators. He instead pulled up franchisee officials for revealing their names to the media. The defaulting BJP corporators had beaten up an SNDL officer when they took out a rally to SNDL office for protesting disclosure of their names.
