Some laud corporators’ style of protest, others slam ‘pothole politics’

MUMBAI: While MNS is playing politics over potholes, months ahead of civic polls, Dadar

residents

are divided over the two

corporators

’ style of protest who allegedly insulted a civic engineer last week.

“The MNS corporators—Sandeep Deshpande and Santosh Dhuri—helped raise a very important issue on behalf of the citizens. Although I don’t agree with the unethical means, it should be considered that they managed to raise an issue which the citizens couldn’t. We can’t blame the corporators; we are the ones who voted for them,” said Ashok Rawat, a resident of Dadar.

However, Bhaskar Prabhu, another resident, differed. He said that the corporators have sensationalized the issue. Corporators must leave such issues for the citizens to deal with. Citizens should raise these issues through an audit. Citizens should work together and there should be no any interference from corporators.

Speaking to TOI after being released on bail, Dhuri said: “I don’t feel humiliated by the fact that I was jailed. I’m glad that we helped initiate a change in the city. We never insulted the engineers as they have been claiming.”

Meanwhile, justifying the two-day stop-work protest by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Engineers’ Union after the alleged insult, the body’s general secretary, Sainath Rajdhyaksha, said they were united as any one can be subjected to this sort of humiliation.

On Monday, most of posters put up by the MNS to raise “support” for the two corporators were removed by the police. The bail proceedings went off peacefully.