Former BJP MP Kirit Somaiya began indefinite fast at the State party headquarters in south Mumbai on Monday to demand adequate compensation for the family members of those killed in the fire that broke out in a seven-storey building at Vikhroli in north-east Mumbai on November 11 and rehabilitation package for the displaced families.
The family members of those killed and displaced in the mishap have joined Somaiya, who is a former MP from Mumbai north-east constituency, in his hunger agitation.
On the first day of his fast, several Mumbai BJP leaders and workers, including the leader of the Opposition in the State legislative Council Vinod Tawde and party’s city unit president Ashish Shelar, joined Somaiya in his agitation.
RPI(A) president Ramdas Athavale, whose party is a constituent of the Shiv Sena-BJP-RPI(A) grand alliance, also took part in the agitation.
Talking to mediapersons, Somaiya said that despite his having taken up the issue of the families affected in the November 11, 2013 fire mishap, the State Government had not taken any initiative to rehabilitate as many as 100 families who were rendered homeless following the mishap.
“Nor has the state government has provided adequate financial assistance to the family members of those killed in the mishap,” Somaiya said.Four members of a family were killed and 14 others injured, when a massive broke out in “Kailash complex”, at Vikhroli in north-east Mumbai, in the early hours of November 11.
Owing to an electric short circuit, fire had erupted in the fifth, sixth and seventh floors of Kailash complex, a seven-storey building constructed under a project of the state-run Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), at Vikhroli’s Siddharth Nagar locality.
Somaiya attributed the mishap to the alleged inferior construction undertaken by the alleged corrupt developer in collusion with the vested interests in the SRA. As part of his agitation, Somaiya is demanding a rehabilitation package for the Dalit and lower middle class families displaced after the mishap.