Pune mayor opens road under pressure from opposition

Buckling under pressure from the opposition parties in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), city mayor Mohansingh Rajpal hurriedly opened the 2.5-km stretch between Patil Estate and Sadalbaba Dargah to the public on Wednesday.

Fed up with the mayor’s empty promise to inaugurate the road, the Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders had on Tuesday decided to open the road for public use on Wednesday morning, forcing the mayor to reach the spot at 7.30 am and open it.

The Bombay Sappers initially took objection when the mayor reached the spot for inauguration as they were not informed in advance, and the civic body had not kept its promise to invite the military outfit’s top officers for the function.

The civic body has spent Rs43 crore to develop the 100-foot-wide road, including constructing some buildings for the Bombay Sappers against land acquired the latter.

Lambasting the mayor for making citizens wait for almost six months to use the road after postponing the date of inauguration due to unavailability of Nationalist Congress Party leaders, opposition leader Vikas Mathkari said, “We are happy that the mayor has inaugurated the road, but it is wrong that he did it in haste and even did not maintain the courtesy to call the local corporator, Sanjay Bhosale, for the inauguration.”

However, BJP and Sena leaders organised a march on the road.