Pandomnium in Thane Corporation meeting............mayor abruptly abandons house..............................

Power struggle in the Thane Municipal Corporation today took an ugly turn when the City mayor H S Patil had to beat a hasty retreat from the General Body meeting when the Opposition NCP Corporators virtually ran towards him and pounced on him.

Right from the start todays meeting of the corporation was a stormy one with the opposition members being aggrasive and determined as they were not not to allow the meeting to continue.

The meeting was called to nominate members for the various committees of the corporation including the Standing Committee, Co-option of members, and various others committees.

The NCP group was hurt as their political partners Congress had deserted them and formed another group in the corporation to teach the NCP a lesson.

To add fuel to fire the Ruling Shiv Sena gave the post of leader of opposition to the Congress leader Manoj Shinde which aggravated the situation.

The opposition leaders kept the proceedings hanging by bringing one issue or the other for the first hundred minutes.

The NCP leaders pointed out that the civic corporation had not not received any letter after the one of March 19 where in the break up of the groups was given.

In that the Congress was shown in the group lead by the NCP.

Despite the fact the NCP members were more than the Congress the Shiv Sena had nominated the Congress leader as the leader of the opposition which was questioned by the NCP.

However today during the meeting leader of the house Naresh Mhaske brought Manoj Shinde to the meeting and the latter was felicitated also.

However when the mayor started off with the proceedings and announced the party wise strength of members the NCP leaders took objection to the same and wanted to know based on what formula the parties had been given the share.

The Mayor went ahead with the proceedings and started opening the envelops containing the letters from the parties and reading out the name.

This sparked a row and the opposition members lead by Hanumant Jagdale, Nazeeb Mulla, Sanjay Bhoir rushed towards the Mayors table and raised slogans and virtually pounced on him.

Later the other NCP corporators joined their leaders and gheroed the Mayor and shouted slogans condemning him, and they included also a number of female corporators.

Meanwhile sensing trouble the Shiv Sena and BJP corporators also rushed towards the well to protect the Mayor and there was a wordy duel between the Shiv Sena and NCP corporators and fist blows. There was utter confusion in the house and totally melee.

In the process the Commissioner R A Rajeev, and Deputy Mayor Milind Patankar sensing further trouble got up and the slogan shouting continued for well over quite some time.

The corporators who were black ribbon also shouted slogan against Shinde and said “Betrayers” hai hai.

In the midst of the slogan shouting and melee the Mayor quietly left the meeting and abandoned it abruptly.

The NCP members did not not budge and inch and squatted on the floor in front of the mayors chair and remained there for quite some time while the Sena corporators took to their seats.

The Congress members ere silent spectators all through out the high pitched drama.