MSRDC chairman Radheshyam Mopalwar sacked, Opposition wants Mehta out too

MUMBAI: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday removed IAS official Radheshyam Mopalwar from the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) office. Mopalwar, who had headed MSRDC as its vice chairman and MD, was overseeing one of the state's most crucial projects -the Mumbai-Nagpur 8-lane super expressway .

Though Fadnavis said that the decision was taken after the charges of corruption levelled against him, it failed to assuage an angry Opposition which has been demanding action against state housing minister Prakash Mehta for some serious rule violations.

The CM, however, while removing Mopalwar till an inquiry against him is completed, refused to take similar action against Mehta, claiming the allegations against him were politically motivated.

“These allegations are being made to score political points. He (Mehta) is being accused of taking a decision when the proposal itself was not cleared. How can there be corruption when the project was not cleared? In spite of this, we have ordered an in quiry into it,“ said Fadnavis.

Mehta is under the scanner after he pitched for a proposal which would have led to huge gains of more than Rs 600 crore for a developer in violation of rules, and in spite of senior officials from BCCL his own department opposing the move, arguing there's no provision for the same.

Mehta, however, cleared the proposal by noting that the `chief minister has been informed', implying that the CM was okay with the proposal. This though was far from the truth as Fadnavis wasn't aware of any such proposal and eventually stayed it after he came to know of it.

Fadnavis is believed to have pulled up Mehta for wrongly noting in the file that the CM had been informed, said sources aware of the matter.