Ahmedabad: City Mayor Bijal Patel today morning refused to make comment on a tweet of BJP leader she had liked yesterday. A tweet she had liked was full of allegations against previous municipal commissioner Vijay Nehra who had been transferred earlier this month amid rising number of Covid19 cases.

Mayor was at GMDC ground to inaugurate the Mango festival organized by Amdavad Municipal Corporation (AMC). Reporters rushed to her and asked repeatedly about tweets with allegations against previous commissioner Nehra. Mayor however refused to reply and insisted that she would speak only about Mango festival and nothing else.

Yesterday while creating a twitter trend with hashtag #StopTargetingGujarat, the IT cell of Gujarat BJP had made a list of tweets and circulated them to BJP leaders. Not all BJP leaders posted these ready-made tweets, but some of the leaders or their staffers who handle social media on their behalf posted ready-made tweets and graphics supplied by State IT cell.

One of creative images in Hindi fonts claimed that it was a lie that AMC commissioner Vijay Nehra was changed because he was doing more testing to detect Covid19 cases…. The truth is, Vijay Nehra forgot about the problems of the people of Ahmedabad and only continued to be occupied on social media for own propaganda. He spread fear among people by presenting baseless and illusive figures that Ahmdabad will witness 8 lakh cases of coronavirus. He left Ahmedabad on God’s mercy and went to home quarantine, therefore instead of Vijay Nehra, the State government in order to take quick and effective decisions, gave the charge of Ahmedabad to senior officers….

This tweet was liked by Mayor Bijal Patel and a screenshot showing same was viral on social media platforms.

The Mayor had recently in her interview with Gujarati magazine said, ‘Commissioner (Nehra) had to take right-wrong any decision by taking the elected wing together with him, but he didn’t do so. His job was only policy making. It is the government that spends the money and not some IAS officer from his own salary. While taking the decisions the commissioner had not informed higher officials also. In the span of 50 days of Coronavirus spread, he had taken all decisions pertaining to Ahmedabad and made announcements on his own. He had not highlighted Mayor and Standing Committee Chairman anywhere. It has never happened in the past that elected wing had no say in decisions and announcements of decisions. We were going to make representation before Gandinagar in this regard but assembly session was going on. The new commissioner informs us about each decision and take us along while taking decisions and making announcements.’

In the past the Mayor had gone public to disclose that her directive was overruled by municipal officials on instruction of municipal commissioner Nehra.

On May 6, then Municipal commissioner Vijay Nehra announced that he was quarantining himself for 14 days as he had come in contact with people who had tested positive for Covid-19. According to the Times of India report, Nehra’s announcement came soon after the 6:15pm video conference (VC) in which revenue minister Kaushik Patel and chief principal secretary to the CM, K Kailashnathan, introduced AMC’s deputy municipal commissioners and other municipal staff to additional chief secretary Rajiv Gupta, who would now lead the war on Covid in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar. Nehra immediately signed out of the meeting. Gupta then formally introduced vice-chairman and CEO, Gujarat Maritime Board, Mukesh Kumar, as the new in-charge municipal commissioner.

Ahmedabad’s rising Covid numbers were a concern. The situation was worsening when this happened. Some senior politicians had complained that Nehra would not listen to them. Some senior politicians worried that Covid-19 may snowball into a big political issue ahead of municipal elections.

On the day when Nehra went to home quarantine, out of total 6245 Covid19 cases in Gujarat, 4425 cases were only from Ahmedabad. The city of Ahmedabad had witnessed 273 Covid19 related deaths and discharge of 704 Covid19 patients after full recovery. In just 24 hours, the city had increase of 349 new Covid19 cases. Countrywide, Ahmedaad was number two after Mumbai in terms of Covid19 cases and deaths.

Nehra had after few days of home quarantine, in a tweet made announcement that he was tested Covid19 negative and would rejoin the fight against Covid19 soon. However, after a few days came news of Nehra’s transfer to Rural Development ministry.

It is learnt that after twitter row, Nehra has visited the Chief Minister at CM residence in Gandhinagar today. Nehra tweeted that he had taken over as Commissioner and Secretary, Rural Development, Gujarat on May 19.

I have taken over as Commissioner & Secretary, Rural Development, Gujarat on 19th May

Looking forward to working with 33 district teams to implement the different Central/ State Schemes for Rural Development

— Vijay Nehra (@vnehra) May 26, 2020

Meanwhile, the BJP leaders have deleted their tweets regarding Nehra.

DeshGujarat