Chief Minister Narayan Rane, who also heads the Urban Development Department, today signed the order dissolving MBMC. This is for the first time that a local-self-government body near Mumbai has been dissolved on charges of corruption against its president. Sources at Mantralaya said fresh elections to MBMC were likely to be held in six months' time.

While all the hell seems to be breaking loose on MBMC now, the controversy which is at the heart of all this is almost four years old. In 1994 Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) had nabbed two MBMC officials red handed while accepting bribe from a contractor. The two officials - Ajit Patil (Administration) and Shrikant More (Accounts) - in their statement tothe police had claimed they had accepted the bribe of Rs 35,000 on behalf of the then President of MBMC Gilbert Mendonca and the Chief Officer Laxman Latake.The ACB then approached the state government and the MBMC to prosecute Latke and the Patil-More pair respectively. However, while state government conceded, MBMC declined permission.

In fact, the MBMC general body later passed a resolution refusing ACB permission to prosecute its officials and initiated a departmental inquiry against Patil and More. State Government's repeated orders to let ACB prosecute the two officials were also rejected by the council saying that the government had no authority to issue orders as it was an autonomous body. When advocate general's opinion was sought he gave government a green signal to take any action it deemed fit against the council. However, the Congress government and later the Shiv Sena-BJP governments did not exercise the option primarily because of a complete lack of political will. Mendonca, who subsequentlywent on to get re-elected to the council president's post for four successive terms, would have continued to defy the state government had the matter not been forced against him by a petition filed by sitting Janata Dal corporator Milan Mhatre early this year seeking his dismissal. Mendonca's sacking was a result of HC direction to the Government to initiate action against him. But the government didn't stop at that Minister of state for Urban Development, Ravindra Mane, later sent a proposal to dissolve MBMC to the CM's office. The proposal was accepted today.