A political rupture in the Shirur Municipal Council has brought allegations over water supply, sewage treatment, municipal contracts and decision-making into the open, after five councillors from the Sharadchandra Pawar faction announced their exit from the ruling alliance and held a joint press conference on 13 November.
Councillors Ravindra Dhobale, Mitesh Gadia, Dr Sunita Pote, Charushila Kolapkar and Swapnali Jamdar said they had joined the alliance after an understanding was reached on an inclusive development policy and a common minimum programme. They alleged that they were not consulted on development planning, tenders or major decisions from the council’s first general meeting onwards.
Dhobale said the alliance had held no joint meeting or substantive discussion during the past year and alleged that the five councillors were sidelined after opposing decisions they considered improper. He also said the group had not been consulted when support was sought from the Bharatiya Janata Party, and alleged that the councillors were being prevented from leaving the alliance while party directives were being issued to them.
The councillors said they would take legal action on the issue and could approach the Bombay High Court if necessary. They said they would now act as an assertive opposition within the municipal council and raise concerns about decisions they consider incorrect through democratic means.
Water supply was a central issue at the press conference. Pote, who is identified in the report as chairperson of the council’s water supply committee, alleged that she had written more than 200 letters seeking information and improvements related to water distribution, system repairs, planning and fund allocation. She said reminders and requests submitted under the Right to Information Act had not received the required information.
Pote also alleged that a sewage treatment plant project had received funding of Rs 2 crore but that the current status of the funds was unclear. She claimed the plant was operating at only 30 per cent capacity and that the city’s sewage was being released directly into the Ghodnadi riverbed. She further alleged that contracts were being awarded to relatives and that councillors were being threatened. These claims were made at the press conference and were not independently established in the report.
Kolapkar and Jamdar alleged that development works proposed in their respective wards had not been carried out during the past year. Gadia, a former deputy president, rejected allegations previously made against him during a no-confidence motion and accused the ruling group of obstructing development. Dhobale separately alleged that contracts were being given to people close to those in power and referred to alleged percentage-based gains, without providing documentary evidence in the report.
Shirur Municipal Council chief officer Pritam Patil rejected the allegation that councillors or wards were being deliberately ignored. He said the administration plans works across all wards according to available funds and priorities, and that the council’s resources are limited. According to Patil, project planning also depends on funds made available through state and central government schemes.
Patil said prioritising some works did not mean that a ward or elected representative was being excluded. He also said the administration’s policy was to undertake equitable works within the available funding framework.
Council president Aishwarya Pacharne described the councillors’ allegations as baseless and linked them to internal differences. She said the council was functioning transparently through consultation and that all contracts were awarded online, making it impossible, in her view, to favour relatives or associates through the tendering process. She also said development works were being distributed equally.
The dispute now places the council’s internal alliance, the legal status of the dissenting councillors and the implementation of water and sewage infrastructure under scrutiny. The councillors have indicated that they will pursue the matter through legal and democratic channels, while the council administration and president have denied wrongdoing and defended the existing planning and tendering process.
