The raging controversy over potholes on the roads in the metropolis and neighbouring areas took a violent turn on Monday, as a group of MNS activists ransacked the office of the Public Works Department (PWD) at Turbhe in Navi Mumbai in protest against potholes on the Sion-Panvel road.
With potholes having claimed as many five lives at Kalyan in the adjoining Thane district, the MNS activists turned up the heat on the Maharashtra Government, as they barged into the PWD office at Turbhe and went on a rampaging spree, damaging furniture and other things there.
Highlighting the pothole-ridden Sion-Panvel road where there have been many accidents during the current Monsoon weeks, the MNS activists raised slogans against PWD Minister Eknath Munde and demanded that a criminal case be registered against the Minister concerned.
The protesters warned the Maharashtra Government that if the PWD department did not re-surface the pothole-ridden Sion-Panvel road immediately, the MNS would not have any alternative but to ransack “Mantralaya” (State Secretariat) in south Mumbai.
“The State Government has spent a staggering Rs 1,200 crore on the Sion-Panvel road. The State Government imposes toll charges on vehicle owners using this road. As many as five persons have been killed because of the potholes on this road. We undertook a surgical strike on the Turbhe PWD office to highlight the failure of both the local civic administration and BJP-led saffron alliance Government to remedy the situation,” said MNS leader from Airoli Sandeep Gulugade .
Defending his party activists’ violent protest at Turbe, MNS chief Raj Thackeray said, “Whatever my party workers have done is correct. If the State Government cannot see potholes on the road, my party has no alternative but to undertake protests in a manner our party workers did today”.