Ever since the Sairaj crash on November 7, there was a concerted effort on the part of TMC corporators to place the blame of mishap at the administration's door. The list is likely put a hold to this propaganda.And while the administration is being very secretive about the list, there are few namesthat are already doing rounds. Sangita Manik Patil, an SP corporator, who was widely quoted in media saying that she had made repeated complaints about illegal constructions in Kisan Nagar to the administration, is one of them. What she had conveniently left out in her conversations with this journalist was the fact that her husband Manik Patil is himself a builder and that the family owns 75 of the illegal buildings in Kisan Nagar.Sangita Patil had also led a morcha in May this year demanding that Kisan Nagar buildings be given permanent water connections. When confronted today, she said: ``Just because somebody is living in an illegal structure does not mean that he should be denied water connection.'' While she refused to comment on the illegal buildings owned by her family, her husband was more forthcoming. ``These buildings were built long ago. If they want to demolish all illegal buildings, they will have to raze all of Kisan Nagar to ground,'' said Manik Patil.

And shocking though it may sound, thereis no exaggeration in Manik Patil's statement. Kisan Nagar a cluster of buildings built back-to-back is a concrete jungle. It derives its name from one Kisan Panchal who owned a large patch of land in Thane which was covered with trees till the late sixties. By 1975-78 chawls were already being constructed on the plot and the then municipal council had given a go-ahead to ground-level structures. The 1980s real estate boom saw a large population moving to the suburbs. A train connection made Thane a favourite over Western suburbs. Kisan Nagar began to take shape.

As real estate prices spiralled, the floors in Kisan Nagar buildings rose proportionately. ``Till 1985 people were sceptical of investing in an illegally built building, but this fear soon gave away to a mad scramble for flats,'' said one of the most successful builders in Thane, who was once a mason. ``It was like striking a gold-mine,'' he added recalling that some of the corporators who live in palatial houses and move around in cars today, wererickshaw drivers when the real estate boom happened.

Buildings were built on existing chawl foundations and floors were raised as demands for tenements rose. ``Not only were there no architects and plans, even the material used was sub-standard,'' the builder pointed out.

And once people came to live in the buildings, it all became a matter of vote banks.

``Corporators used every rule in the book to pressurise us to provide civic facilities to these squatters,'' a senior civic official revealed. Quite predictably, the corporators cutting across party lines have now closed ranks to stops evacuations from dangerous buildings. Their worry obviously is not lives, but votes.