Shiv Sena-BJP in a spot over comic Kapil Sharma's BMC bribe tweets

CM assures stern action, opposition says their charges of corruption in BMC come true

Rampant corruption and mounting cases of bribery in the Shiv Sena-BJP controlled BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) today came to light once again, after comedian Kapil Sharma tweeted on Friday morning that he was being asked for a Rs five lakh bribe by a civic engineer. Sharma, in his explosive tweets to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleged that he was paying Rs 15 crore income tax for the last five years and still he had to pay Rs 5 lakh bribe to BMC engineer for making my office. ''Is this your achhe din?" he asked.

Kapil's tweets led to intervention by the Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis who in his tweet asked him to reveal details. "Have directed BMC to take strictest action. We will not spare the culprit," Fadnavis tweeted.

However, opposition Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) reacted sharply holding Shiv Sena-BJP responsible for increase in corruption and demand for bribery during their over 20 year rule. They demanded strong action against the concerned officials who demanded bribe from Kapil. Opposition declared that they will continue to expose Shiv Sena-BJP alliance for prevailing scams in the civic body in the run up to the BMC poll slated for early 2017.

Interestingly, BJP MP Kirit Somaiya, who has been exposing corruption in the civic rule targeting Shiv Sena, alleged that a citizen has to grease the palm from low ranking employee to the senior level official and ultimately to the godfather. He demanded that the concerned civic employees should not be spared but they should be punished.

However, BJP legislator from  Northeast Mumbai Ram Kadam contradicted Somaiya by questioning Kapil for not filing a complaint about harassment.

Congress legislator Nitesh Rane came up with a meme. Wearing a Kapil Sharma mask, he said he hoped it would draw the authorities' attention.

Mumbai city unit chief and former MP Sanjay Nirupam, who had ealier demanded dissolution of the civic body for a large scale corruption, today hit against Shiv Sena and BJP. He alleged that there were series of cases of corruption cases in nullah desilting scam, road re-pairing scam, dumping ground scam, fire brigade scam, tablet scam, waste management scam and these scams were ultimately jeopardising the life of a common Mumbaikar.

The leader of opposition in the state council Dhananjay Munde recalled that he had flagged off corruption in BMC several times but added no action had been taken by Fadnavis.

Shiv Sena corporator and the leader of house in BMC Trishna Vishwasrao dared Kapil to name the civic official who had demanded bribe from him. She hastened to add that even bribe giving is also an offence.

Another Shiv Sena corporator Kishori Pednekar warned that her party would not tolerate to target civic body by making such sensational statements. She demanded probe should be conducted to find out who was behind Kapil for directing addressing his tweets to Modi.