Mumbai News Highlights: ED detains Sanjay Raut after raiding his residence; Raut dubs raids against him as ‘political vendetta’
A political row erupted in Maharashtra on Saturday over Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari’s remarks suggesting that it was people from Gujarat and Rajasthan who had made Mumbai the financial capital of the country. As Koshyari claimed his statement had been misconstrued, the Opposition sought his resignation and even the Shinde Sena-BJP government, mindful of the fallout in a city with deep fault lines over sons-of-the-soil issue, distanced itself from his remarks. Even as Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray slammed him for his remarks, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde Saturday distanced himself from the row, saying he does not agree with the governor’s remarks.
Corresponding to the increase in intensity and unpredictability of rainfall, the cost of preparing Mumbai for monsoon has increased by around 150 per cent in the last four to five years, shows BMC data. While Mumbai records an average of 2,200 mm rainfall in monsoon, the city had recorded around 3,000 mm of rain in 2021. Between 12-15 per cent of BMC’s Rs 45,949.21 crore annual budget for 2022-23 has been allocated for projects related to monsoon preparations – up from 7-8 per cent four or five years ago, according to BMC estimates.
Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi president Prakash Ambedkar said on Saturday that Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari’s remarks on Mumbai should serve as a wake-up call for the established political parties, which he said had failed to empower “sons of the soil” economically. “I don’t see why such a hue and cry is raised about the governor’s statement. He was just stating the facts, and exposing the state leaders who failed to economically empower bhoomi putra,” Ambedkar said.
“The established Maratha leadership in the Congress and the NCP, which ruled Maharashtra for most of the time, failed its people, Marathi manoos. Koshyari should be lauded for speaking the truth and opening the eyes of state leaders. It should be a call for all political parties to introspect where and why they failed their own people,” he said.