Parties couldn't care less for HC's no banner order

MNS corporator and BJP MLC erect hoardings from Jogeshwari to Dahisar announcing new pool by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis

Hoardings in Dahisar East announcing that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis would inaugurate a pool built by MLC Pravin Darekar. Pics/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

Court orders be damned. Despite the Bombay High Court’s directive on Friday ordering a crackdown on illegal hoardings in the city, ward corporator Prakash Darekar (from the MNS) and his brother and BJP MLC, Pravin Darekar, lined up hoardings from Jogeshwari to the Dahisar checkpost on the inauguration of a swimming pool in Ashok Van, Dahisar East, by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis yesterday. The CM first inaugurated a garden in Anand Nagar, Dahisar, and then the pool, which was built by Prakash with BMC funds.

The CM opens the pool in Ashok Van, Dahisar East, on Saturday

The hoardings were erected on Thursday. Special permission is mandatory before erecting hoardings and banners. The BJP has now washed its hands of the hoardings.

The court order
On Friday, the HC had directed the civic body to ensure that all illegal hoardings erected during Ganeshotsav as well as those likely to come up during Navratri next month are razed in a special drive by October 15. It also ordered political parties to submit an affidavit by the same deadline on the measures they took to contain the menace. A BMC official said as per the HC order, ward corporators can report the names of party workers who obstruct this special anti-hoarding drive.

SB Bande, deputy superintendent of licence in the BMC, asked mid-day to speak to the ward office on the issue. Vijay Kamble, R-North ward officer, refused to comment.

The silver lining
The CM’s visit, though, brought some cheer to the area. According to sources, in the two days prior to his visit, the BMC filled numerous potholes, levelled a 200-m stretch of road – where a mandap for the event was to be set up – from Gokul Anand Hotel to the Western Express Highway, and cleared mounds of garbage.

Residents said the area was spruced up in two days. A senior citizen said, “Garbage had piled up in the area in the absence of a waste bin. On Friday night, all of it was cleared.”

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