Nagpur News.
The fight for supremacy between the ruling party and NMC administration has now taken an ugly turn. The ruling party has been hastily working out plans to bring no-confidence motion against civic body’s commissioner Shyam Wardhane. However, the trick appears to be fizzling out as far as its efficacy is concerned. The BJP ruling has been cornered on various occasions by NMC administration. This led the irate members to randomly react against its failure to drive home their point of view. The administrative body has always secured an edge over the ruling party when it came to taking important decisions.
The Mayor is more recently being seen as the harbinger of campaigns and eventually could not prove his mettle in making efforts towards public interest works. The party members remained indecisive most of times which provided enough fodder for the opposition to pull them off the track. The opposition corporators take the ruling party to task for virtually having no control over administration. Opposition often pulls up ruling BJP over latter being always ignored by NMC administration.
The recent issue that came up was about 10 percent hike in dearness allowances of NMC employees. The Mayor was out on a tour to Gujarat along with the entire ruling party members. In the meantime, NMC Commissioner issued the circular for 10 percent additional DA, effective from the month of October. While it could not be denied on any front that the credit for the initiative rests upon the commissioner, many others jumped up to grab to the credit.
As the Mayor returned from the tour, the corporators reportedly incensed him to take on the commissioner and get him to cancel the circular and then reissue it on their demand. The entire ploy was meant to secure credit into the kitty. The commissioner then consented to doing the same. Upon his assurance, the Mayor got the media to publish the so called efforts initiated by him.
Later, it turned out that the commissioner did not cancel his earlier circular. The Mayor had to see red in his face after the news disseminated across the media in this regard was published. The ruling party members remained at the target of opposition since then. The credit seeking exercise proved costly to them as the commissioner did not live up to his assurance.
This enraged the ruling party members, one of whom, also an indirect convener of Traffic Park and former corporator, conveyed a message to the commissioner through an officer posted at NMC headquarters. The message was loud and clear – the ruling party would avenge their defeat in the ‘credit game’.
However, sources said the answer the ruling party got stunned the members. It was conveyed in reply that if the figures for getting the no-confidence motion fall short then they will help arrange for the same.
Analysts believe that the Mayor has been playing on wrong side and should have instead supported the commissioner in larger interest of citizens.
When Nagpur Today tried to communicate with Wardhane to seek his stand on the issue, his cell phone remained unanswered for most part of the day. Later the phone got switched off.
