Mumbai: Not inclined to pass up the one final opportunity offered by the last session of the current government, opposition parties tore apart the 'Mr Clean' image of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and put a serious question mark on his claims of running a transparent government.
For the first time, CM Devendra Fadnavis was targeted with allegations about his direct involvement in a corruption case. Leading the charge were NCP group leader Jayant Patil and Leader of the Opposition Vijay Wadettiwar.
On Monday, Jayant Patil initiated the discussion by harping on more than 10 cases of corruption by various ministers and their departments in the last five years. Of these, the most important one was the case of the Seven Eleven Hotel in Mira-Bhayandar, in which one of the partners is the brother of BJP legislator Narendra Mehta. In this case, irregularities and blatant violation of court orders were covered by Fadnavis, charged Patil.
“The Seven Eleven Hotels Private Limited was granted land in a no-development zone to construct the hotel. Additional floor space index (FSI) was approved for the hotel, in violation of rules. Again, in a major breach of the high court's order on Coastal Regulation Zones, permission to build the hotel was granted. When the building plan of the hotel was rejected, on the ground that the area was mangrove land, the urban development department said there was a state highway near the mangroves, when in reality, no such highway exists. This file, which clearly violated all rules and orders of the high court, was signed and cleared by CM Fadnavis, who is also the urban development minister. This is because one of the partners in the company owning the hotel is the brother of Narendra Mehta, the MLA from Mira-Bhayandar,” Patil charged in the assembly.
“Most importantly, though Seven Eleven was granted illegal permission to construct the hotel, they did not build a hotel but a club. The property value, including the cost of the land, is Rs 700 crores. This illegal order by CM Fadnavis has blotted his image which was clean thus far,” said Patil.
