BJP gets aggressive over inflated power bill issue
| Date :30-Jun-2020 |
Pravin Datke, MLC; Vikas Kumbhare, MLA; Archana Dehankar, former Mayor; Deepraj Pardikar, former Deputy Mayor, and other BJP leaders handing over memorandum to MSEDCL officials during the demonstrations against inflated power bills, in Tulshibagh area on Monday. (Pic by Satish Raut)
Staff Reporter :
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on Monday, staged demonstrations at six different locations in the city against inflated power bills and raised slogans against the State Government. BJP leaders demanded scrapping of the inflated power bills for lockdown period, and issuance of corrected bills to consumers. Pravin Datke, MLC and BJP city chief; Vikas Kumbhare, MLA, led the demonstrations outside Tulshibagh sub-station in Central Nagpur.
Archana Dehankar, former Mayor; Deepraj Pardikar, former Deputy Mayor; Kishor Palandurkar, Bandu Raut, Subhash pardhi, Vandana Yangatwar, Ashfaque Patel, Shraddha Pathak, Dashrath Maske were present prominently. BJP staged demonstrations at Congress Nagar Square in South-West Nagpur under the leadership of Sandip Joshi, Mayor and Ramdas Ambatkar, MLC. Nanda Jichkar, former Mayor; Kishor Wankhede, Prakash Bhoyar, Ramesh Bhandari, Satish Siraswan and others were present. BJP also staged demonstrations at Chhapru Square in East Nagpur; Automotive Square in North Nagpur; and in West Nagpur. The party leaders, office-bearers, and workers raised slogans against State Government over inflated power bills. Addressing the gathering on the occasion, they said that when most of the industries, commercial establishments were closed due to lockdown in the wake of COVID-19, how come the power consumption increased to the extent shown in the latest electricity bills. Besides, due to lockdown, personal finances of many people had been hit badly.
In such a situation, Datke said, the inflated power bills have come as a rude shock to the consumers. Datke recalled that the Energy Minister had promised free power up to certain units a few months ago. BJP demanded roll-back of inflated power bills and issuance of corrected power bills to consumers. Else, they warned, BJP will burn the inflated power bills as next step of agitation. Sandip Joshi said that the inflated power bills had become a topic of public discontent across the State and even the Bollywood stars had expressed strong displeasure over this. Ambatkar said that BJP was with the people in this agitation against inflated power bills.
The constituency-wise leadership of the demonstrations was as follows: East Nagpur -- Krishna Khopde, MLA; Dr Vikas Mahatme, Member of Rajya Sabha; Manisha Kothe, Deputy Mayor; Pramod Pendke, Balya Borkar, Kanta Rarokar, Dharmapal Meshram, Bunty Kukde, Manoj Chaple, Manisha Dhawade, Chetana Tank, Sanjay Wadhwani, Hitesh Joshi. North Nagpur -- Girish Vyas, MLC; Dr Milind Mane, former MLA; Virendra Kukreja, Chairman of Health Committee of NMC; Gopichand Kumre, Sushama Chaudhary, Kalpana Pandey, former Mayor. West Nagpur -- Prof Anil Sole, MLC; Dr Parinay Fukey, former Minister; Sudhakarrao Deshmukh, former MLA; Girish Deshmukh, Sandeep Jadhav, Sunil Mitra, Sunil Agrawal, Sanjay Bangale, Bhushan Shingne, Kirtida Ajmera, Sunil Hiranwar, Munna Thakur, Vikram Gwalbanshi, Pragati Patil, and others.