Shiv Sena comes under fire for saying 'all's well'

Amidst heavy rains, the Shiv Sena and its top leaders including Sanjay Raut came under fire for its "all is well" attitude and defending the Mumbai civic body that the saffron party is ruling since last over two decades.

The BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation's figure contested the claims of Sena men Raut and Mayor Prof Vishwanath Mahadeshwar, both of them close to Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray.

"It is an accident, you cannot call it failure (BMC).. there has been rains," Raut told a TV channel on Tuesday, when asked about the deluge and wall collapse incident.

His comments come close on the heels of Prof Mahadeshwar's statement on Monday, when he said that everything was well and TV channels were exaggerating the reports. "Show me where is waterlogging," he wanted to know.

Thackeray's son and Yuva Sena president Aditya Thackeray had to step out for a damage control exercise. "The rainfall is an outcome of climate change. This is an emergency situation, don't make this into a controversy," he said, adding that the rainfall was more than the carrying capacity of drains.

Leader of Opposition Vijay Wadettiwar said that pre-monsoon nullah-cleaning was not done properly. "Every year Rs 120 crore is spent on nullah cleaning, where has that gone," the senior Congress leader wanted to know.

NCP chief spokesman and former labour minister Nawab Malik's house was affected by flood waters. Raut also posted a 'shayari' on Twitter that compounded the criticism.

"In Mumbai people have constructed houses on sewers, they have constructed illegal walls. What happened is an accident and there is no fault of the BMC in it. First, the monsoon has come very late and now it has rained so heavily that the whole Mumbai has drowned," he added.