They were protesting the Mayor's decision to reject their demand of making their corporator leader of the Opposition
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members staged a dharna on Thursday after their demand to have their corporator as leader of Opposition in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was rejected by the Sena-led Mayor, Kishori Pednekar. The BJP corporators protested against the decision, boycotted the general body meeting, and created a ruckus outside the hall in the BMC where it was to be held. The corporators have now said that they will go to the High Court against the decision.
The BJP also hasn't selected a group leader in the past 10 months even after former group leader Manoj Kotak had been elected as an MP from the north east constituency. After the BJP realised a technical goof up, as two members of the same party cannot be made Leader of Opposition and Group Leader, the city chief of the party had written to the Mayor asking that Prabhakar Shinde, BJP corporator, be made Group Leader and opposition leader, as they were the second largest party in the civic body, earlier this week.
On Thursday, the BJP's proposal of announcing Shinde as Group Leader was approved, but the request of Opposition leader was not agreed to, as the Mayor announced in the General Body meeting that there is already an Opposition leader in the corporation. After this BJP corporators started sloganeering, walked out of the meeting and sat on a dharna outside the hall.
Shinde said, "We had asked for a discussion on the subject, but were refused this and the Mayor moved on to different proposals. They want the current opposition leader as he will listen to them and there will be no real opposition. We will approach the High Court on this issue."
Ravi Raja, Opposition Leader and Congress corporator, said, "They are levelling allegations that have no grounds and the decision has been taken in consideration with the MMC Act 1888."
Vishakha Raut, Leader of the House said, "In 2017, BJP was offered the Opposition leader's post but they refused it, and had then said they don't want to be in Opposition but want to be watchdogs. The post then went to the third largest party, the Congress. Then why is the BJP blaming us?"
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