The Aam Aadmi Party unit of Maharashtra is expected to file a complaint with the Election Commission seeking disqualification of BJP leader Gopinath Munde.

This comes after Munde’s estranged nephew, MLC Dhananjay Munde alleged that he was asked to arrange one lakh bogus votes for his uncle during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. He had then facilitated bogus voting in Beed district.

Munde’s nephew is now a member of the Shawrad Pawar-led NCP.

NCP expelled former Maharashtra medical education minister Vijay Kumar Gavit from the party.

Gavit’s daughter is the BJP candidate from Nandurbar. The announcement was made by party president Bhaskar Jadhav.

“Gavit has been expelled from the party,” said Jadhav.

The leader was removed from the Cabinet last week after his daughter Heena was made the BJP candidate from Nandurbar against Congress veteran Manikrao Gavit.

The city civic body corporator’s wife, his housemaid and a junior engineer were arrested, for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs. 28,000 on two different occasions, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) said.

BJP corporator Mahant Choube’s wife Urmila and his house maid Geeta Yadav, as well as junior engineer Anand Rai were apprehended from Choube’s house at Antop Hill in central Mumbai, an ACB official said.

According to the police, the complainant had built a shanty at Wadala area. The civic body’s ‘F-North’ ward junior engineer Rai visited the site and demanded a bribe of Rs 8000, alleging that the structure was “illegal” and he would not initiate any “action”, if the amount was paid.

The complainant paid Rs 8000, but after a few days, the engineer approached him once again, demanded Rs 10,000 as a bribe and asked him to meet corporator Mahant Choube too.

On March 20, the complainant met Mahant, who also sought Rs 20,000 to refrain from initiating any action against the structure, the police said.

As the victim did not wish to shell out more money, he complained to the ACB. The police asked the complainant to visit the corporator’s house with money as per Mahant’s directions.

Today, the complainant went to Mahant’s house, where the corporator’s wife Urmila asked him to hand over Rs 20,000 to their maid Geeta at a time when engineer Rai also visited the house, after which the ACB arrested them for accepting bribes.

The corporator is still at large, the police said, adding that further investigation is on.

The Bombay High Court asked Maharashtra government to file an interim report by April 7 on steps taken by it to provide gadgets and devices to handicapped employees working in state-run establishments.

Hearing a PIL, the bench, headed by Chief Justice Mohit Shah, also asked the state to issue directions to civil surgeons in hospitals to issue fitness certificate before May 31 to 2400 handicapped state government employees who were awaiting driving licences.

Government pleader G W Mattos said physically-handicapped persons are asking for ‘side cars’ to be attached to their two wheelers so that they could balance the vehicle while driving. However, RTOs were not granting them licence for want of fitness certificates from civil surgeons.

The government also said there were 18,000 handicapped persons with various disabilities employed by it.

Camps are being organised for various handicapped employees from time to time. However, they have been demanding gadgets required by them. Of the 8254 persons who had asked for gadgets, 4151 were given supplies while orders were placed for another 1000.

However, the court expressed its displeasure saying only half of the handicapped, numbering about 4000, were given gadgets and order for 1000 new gadgets was placed when in fact another 4000 were expecting to get supply.

The pleader said orders were placed only for 1000 gadgets because of fluctuations in the price of dollar as these articles were imported.

However, the court said the price fluctuation of dollar was a permanent feature and this should not be the reason for shortfall in purchase orders.

The matter arose from a PIL filed by Neelima Surve, a visually-impaired person who had got a job in Chetna College in suburban Bandra. She was removed from job but was reinstated after the court intervened. Later, the scope of this PIL was expanded to include all handicapped persons working in government jobs who were denied facilities.

Earlier, the court wanted to know whether the state had adopted guidelines framed by the Centre with regard to recruitment of disabled people or if it had prepared its own.

The women’s wing of Congress in Maharashtra has formed a team of ten workers in each of the Lok Sabha constituency the party is contesting for door-to- door campaigning and reach out to maximum voters.

“The ten-member team includes local Corporators or other elected representatives of Congress and NCP (party’s ally) and family members of the candidate,” Maharashtra Mahila Congress chief Kamal Vyavhare said.

Congress is contesting 27 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra.

There are 442 booth-level committees of the state Mahila Congress and every village has one female Congress worker. There are 1.28 lakh women from gram panchayat to legislature level from the Congress party.

Vani Rao, newly-elected General Secretary in charge of the State Mahila Congress, said the cell in Maharashtra had good booth level presence.

Efforts are on to rope in NGOs so that more and more social issues can be taken up at the party level, she said.

Rao, who hails from Chhattisgarh, said of the 11 Lok Sabha seats in the tribal-dominated State, four have been given to women. “As compared to other parties, women in Congress get more opportunities.”

Rao, who is Mayor of Bilaspur, said BJP had failed to provide security to women in Chhattisgarh, where it is in power.

“Young tribal girls have been sexually assaulted. There are no toilets in ashrams meant for girls in tribal areas. BJP cannot claim to have interests of women in mind,” she said.