We need banners with politicians’ misdeeds

In 2009, a senior Maharashtra minister offered a few discoloured benches to Srishti Complex, a housing colony in Powai with his name embossed in gold.

In return, he asked banners with his pictures be put up on the complex premises. The residents did not object and the banners were there till the election was over.

The instance is portentous of what might lie ahead — from roads, these men could well move into your homes. The day may not be far when they could make vacuous promises in return for hoardings on your terrace or atop your car! You should consider lucky they did not ask you for your forehead; perhaps it is because they are already writing your fate on that!

Political hoardings have become a loathsome canker spreading intractably across the city. The malady is ensconced in the attitude of Mumbaikars - no one cares. It is this ‘chalta hai’ mindset that emboldens politicians to put up hoardings with gay abandon, which not only pose an eco-hazard, but those grinning faces and even huge cut-outs of politicos with folded hands also block the view and sometimes hinder traffic. The question is: Does anyone care?

The Bombay high court has pulled up BMC on a number of occasions for allowing this scourge to thrive, but to no avail. The high court recently asked the civic body if a lay person could put up a banner wishing his relative on his birthday. The BMC’s defence is that under Section 328 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, no one can be refused to put up a banner for a specific period.

If that’s the case, let me make a simple suggestion in the face of such lax rules: let us as citizens put up banners highlighting the politicians’ misdeeds and inaction on all that they are duty-bound to perform as elected representatives. If playing by rules has stooped to such ludicrous levels then it’s time we played tit-for-tat.

It is imperative that if a political banner is put up without legal permits, the ward officer should be held responsible for violation of the Maharashtra Prevention of Defacement of Property Act, 1995 and thus face the stick.

Keeping the Bombay high court’s suggestion in mind, political leaders who appear on hoardings should also be held responsible. Prithviraj Chavan had pleaded with his party colleagues not to put up congratulatory messages when he was made the chief minister. But his was a lone endeavour. Others must follow suit. If they don’t, take them to task.

A last word: all efforts will evaporate if we Mumbaikars did not wake up to stem this practice. How long can we have the courts shield or spoon-feed us? Isn’t it time for every Mumbaikar to protest something that irreparably plunders the image of the city?
raghu@dnandia.net