By Mahesh Vijapurkar
New disclosures have emerged to add strength to the Opposition campaign against the Maharashtra government. Irregularities which may have spawned opportunities for corruption show that all is not well with regard to the work surrounding the erection of a statue of Chatrapati Shivaji atop a fort on the State’s coast.
Corruption is difficult to prove. A whole lot of legal mechanisms are involved even if a person is caught red-handed, as the Anti-Corruption Bureaus often do. But irregularities are easier to spot and public perceptions of malfeasance are slowly built. That suits politics, especially in the run-up to the polls.
Indian Express on Thursday flagged irregularities that would add fuel to the fire lit by the Opposition. It has pointed out these irregularities in the tenders floated and sanctioned for helipads for the VIPs, especially the Prime Minister to land near the Rajkot fort in Sindhudurg on December 4 last year for the Navy Day event.
Going by what has transpired so far, a no-holds-barred political slugfest had started even before the newspaper’s disclosures claiming it had the relevant documents with it. One was an ugly confrontation between Narayan Rane, former Shiv Sena chief minister and now BJP MP and Aditya Thackeray, Uddhav Thackeray’s son atop the fort. The lines seem to be drawn.
The other is the protest for Sunday in Mumbai to be organized by the Opposition comprising the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray), NCP (Sharad Pawar), and the Congress. Uddhav Thackeray announced that the protest would be Jode maro andolan, the Marathi jode maro translating to hit with a slipper. The vocabulary is Shiv Sena’s and points to the aggressiveness ahead.
At the fort, at one point, in full view of news TV cameras and the presence of police, Narayan Rane said that if the Uddhav’s Sena didn’t leave, he “would enter their houses and hit”. The BJP cadre, led by Rane’s son and former MP, Nilesh Rane went to the extent of saying that the locals had the first right to be on the fort, implying that Aditya was an intruder there. Their supporters even pushed each other around.
Amidst all this, Indian Express was working on a story that showed the irregularities. Work orders, the newspaper has said, were issued before the tenders were floated or tenders were floated just a couple of days before the helipads were to be put to use on December 4 for the Navy Day and unveiling of the now collapsed Shivaji statue atop the Rajkot Fort.
Navy Day events are not organized a few days before the event but are meticulously planned by the Indian Navy. Especially when its venue is outside New Delhi where it is held. However, the haste with which the statue was planned and erected by the Navy was shown by the state PWD in getting the helipads built and commissioned.
In one case, the tender was issued three months after the work order, and in another, a day before the VVIP landed. Three helipads were required, one of them for the SPG. Nothing can now please the Opposition comprising the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray, NCP (Sharad Pawar), and Congress.
They can get into specifics now instead of generalised corruption charges riding on the emotive issue of the insult caused to Chatrapati Shivaji because of mishandling of the erection of the statue – haste, apparent poorly built statue and its installation, and the ownership of the statue. It is now said that the Navy handed over the statue to the PWD in April. Details are now slowly tumbling out.
There are also some curious points in the purported work order issued by the Naval Dockyard on September 8 and first shared on the social media platform X by NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule. It has several pro forma blank spaces. It has the date inked in and a signature in blue ink but other spaces referring to “Your bid number” etc. and respective dates are left blank.
There is more to come with the graded rising of the political temperature as a run-up to the Assembly elections sometime in November.
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