Balkrishna Brid is a former corporator from ward no. 3. (Photo: Balkrishna Brid/ Facebook)Dahisar police have booked a former corporator on the allegations of illegally distributing 47 sewing machines owned by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) despite no longer holding the power to do so.
Former corporator Balkrishna Brid, who belongs to the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), has been booked based on a complaint filed by the civic body. The term of 227 corporators, including Brid, elected in 2017 ended on March 7 this year. At present, the corporators do not hold office and the municipality is being run by BMC administrators.
The FIR was registered on October 20 under sections 406 and 420 of the IPC for criminal breach of trust and cheating. The case was registered against Brid after BMC’s assistant engineer Sushil Ingole from R North ward gave a written complaint to the police in the regard.
Brid is a former corporator from ward number 3. For the year 2021-2022, 204 sewing machines were supposed to be distributed among the needy. The procedure to acquire them was completed by the civic body in March this year. This year, about 50 machines were distributed on March 12 and another 50 machines were distributed on March 19.
On September 15, the BMC learnt that a few sewing machines were distributed by Brid on September 15 through the civic body’s social welfare centre in Ketkipada, Dahisar (east). On September 16, an inspection was carried out after which it was found that 47 machines were distributed by Brid while 57 remained with the BMC.
In its complaint, the BMC alleged that the corporator distributed the machines despite knowing he was not authorised to do so.
When contacted, Brid told The Indian Express: “The (CM Eknath) Shinde faction (of the Shiv Sena) is taking revenge against me. The sewing machines were bought from the fund given to my ward by the BMC. It was our idea to distribute machines to needy people. It’s the BMC which chose the beneficiaries for the sewing machines and I had no role to play in their allocation.” He added: “The machines were distributed at the BMC centre in the presence of a BMC employee. I was invited as I am the former corporator of this ward. It did not go down well with the Shinde faction that we, the real Shiv Sena, got some public mileage out of it. Hence, they pushed the BMC and police to register an FIR against me.”