Days after Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena announced its decision to contest the BMC polls independently, NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Thursday said that the “INDIA alliance is only focused on national-level elections.”

While speaking about the impending local polls, the former union minister said, “There has never been any discussion on state and local elections within the INDIA alliance. The INDIA alliance is solely for national-level elections. Regarding the upcoming municipal elections in Maharashtra, everyone will decide within 8-10 days, through a meeting, whether we will contest together or independently.”

Pawar’s statement comes days after Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut announced on Saturday that his party would contest all local body elections independently.

“Uddhavji Thackeray has given us a clear indication. From Mumbai to Nagpur, we will contest local self-government elections on our own strength. Whatever happens, we want to see the outcome,” the Shiv Sena-UBT leader told the media.

Pawar also expressed his views on the Delhi Assembly elections, stating that, in his opinion, the INDIA alliance should support Arvind Kejriwal.

Pawar reportedly rubbished Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s remarks that the BJP’s victory in the Maharashtra assembly polls ended the politics of betrayal and treachery.

“I was the chief minister in 1978. I am not aware about his whereabouts then,” Pawar told reporters in Mumbai. “When I was the chief minister, there were people like Uttamrao Patil from Jan Sangh in my ministry,” Pawar added.

Mumbai: The Mumbai police probing the Torres fraud has said that it has so far received complaints from 1916 victims since case has been registered and total amount of cheating has increased to Rs 38.96 crores. The police claimed that the accused had spend around Rs 25 crores to set up offices in India, to lure customers.

The Mumbai police made this claims while seeking further custody of the three accused arrested by the Shivaji park police station last week. The court has allowed their plea and extended their custody further till January 18.

The Shivaji Park police, had last week, arrested three persons in the gigantic alleged fraud – brand director Survesh Surve, general manager Tania Kastoa alias Tazagul Karaxanovna Xasatova, an Uzbek national, and Dadar store in-charge Valentina Ganesh Kumar, a Russian national. However, the alleged masterminds, Ukrainian nationals John Carter and Victoria Kowalenko, are said to have fled the country.

The police has now added ten more accused, who are foreign national to the list of the accused Tausif Riyaz, Mustafa Karakoc, Oleksandr Borovyk, Oleksandr Zapichenko, Oleksandra Brunkivska, Oleksandra Tredokhib, Olena Stoian, Viktoriia Kovalenko.

The police said that during the investigation it has so far recovered an amount of Rs 6.75 crores out of which 77.15 lakhs were recovered from the house of Tania while the rest of the funds have recovered from the store. Besides, the probe further revealed that the accused had given fake diamonds instead of original, to the customers.

While seeking their custody the prosecution had pointed out that the accused had done a systematic planning from taking the shops on rent, to setting up furnitures, buying diamond jewelry and to return the funds to customers on their investment, the accused had allegedly spent Rs 25 cores and lured thousands of customers.

Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking has revealed that 834 accidents involving its buses have occurred in the last five years, resulting in the loss of 88 lives. In addition to the fatalities, many others were injured in these incidents, prompting the administration to pay a total of Rs 42.40 crores as financial compensation to the victims and their families.

This information was disclosed in response to an RTI query filed by activist Anil Galgali. Anil Galgali had asked the BEST administration about accidents, loss of life and financial compensation in the last 5 years. Egal Benjamin, Senior Transport Officer of BEST, gave detailed information about the last 5 years to Anil Galgali.

In the last 5 years, there have been 834 BEST bus accidents involving BEST and private contractors. BEST had 352 accidents with 51 fatalities while private contractors had 37 fatalities out of 482 accidents. The year 2022-23 and the year 2023-24 recorded the highest 21 deaths each.

Rs 42.40 crores financial compensation was given to the dead and injured in the last 5 years and there were 494 cases. The highest amount was given in the year 2022-23.

In 107 cases that year, the highest monetary Compensation amount was 12.40 crores. Compensation amount was 9.55 crore in the year 2019-20, 3.44 crore in the year 2020-21, 9.45 crore in the year 2021-22, 7.54 crore in the year 2023-24.

In the last 5 years the number of dismissals of employees in fatal accidents is 12 and 2 employees were dismissed in personal injury cases. 24 employees have been suspended in personal injury cases. In other actions, warning, understanding, strong warning, recovery, reduction in dual category have been done.

These statistics highlight the safety responsibility of the BEST administration. Anil Galgali says that this shows the need to take more precautions from the administration and employees.