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Our Correspondent in Bombay
In a surprise development on Monday, the Government of Maharashtra issued a show-cause notice to the Bombay Municipal Corporation, asking it to explain why it should not be superseded.
The notice was issued after a committee headed by former Bombay municipal commissioner S S Tinaikar found large-scale malpractice in the functioning of the corporation.
The Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party combine, the opposition party in the state, rules the BMC, the country's largest and richest civic body.
The Tinaikar Committee, set up by the Democratic Front government a few months ago, had found several instances of malpractice during the tenure of Mayor Nandu Satam, when the mayor-in-council system was being experimented with. Among the malpractices found by the committee was the sale of some buses belonging to the Bombay Electric Supply and Transport undertaking of the BMC to a trust run by Sena chief Bal Thackeray's son Uddhav.
Observers see the notice as the first step towards the dissolution of the BMC. The next BMC election has already been fixed for February 10.
The Sena-BJP members are accusing the government of vindictiveness. Senior Sena politician K P Naik said the Democratic Front had done this to smear them ahead of the elections.
Of the 221 electoral wards in the city, the Shiv Sena holds 107, the BJP 28, the Congress-NCP combine 51 and the Samajwadi Party 22.
Bombay Mayor Hareshwar Patil was unavailable for comment.
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