Raising the issue, former Mayor Vasant Gita of Sena lambasted Standing Committee chairman Shahu Khaire for not including Thackeray and Vajpayee's photograph in the 1998-99 budget booklets. Gite accused Khairee (a Congressman) of not only excluding the pictures deliberately, but also including Sonia Gandhi's photo.

Opposition leader, Sena's Ashok Gawli supported Gite and criticised Khaire for the missing photographs from the budget books. He also accused Khaire of playing dirty politics.

The discussion led to unruly scenes, with Congress corporators led by Khaire, countering the charges. Khaire said that undue importance was being given to trivial issues to gain political mileage when important civic mattersrequired the attention of the House.

Gite demanded that all pictures be removed and only those of Thackeray and Vajapyee be printed. The new budget booklets circulated to members, incidentally, had pictures of Shivaji, Ambedkar, Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Manohar Joshi, Mayor Ashok Dive, Municipal Commissioner K P Bakshi and Standing Committee chairman Shahu Khaire. The issue remained inconclusive. According to the budget presented by the Standing Committee to the general body of the NMC, the year 1998-99 would close with a surplus of Rs 56 lakh, the revenue of Rs 354.16 crore and expenditure of Rs 353.50 crore.

CITU STIR: The CITU has decided to organise morchas all over the State on May 21 and stage a dharna at Azad Maidan on May 25 to draw the attention of the government to the plight of the workers of the poultry farms of the C and M Group.

Addressing a rally of workers, CITU general secretary Dr D L Karad said that the management had resorted to dictatorial methods to silencethe workers demands by going on a transfers and suspension spree. It may be recalled that a riot at the Vani Khurd poultry farm in Dindori had led to police firing, which injured one person on February 8. Subsequently, a sacked female worker, Sangeeta Dive, had set herself ablaze in the company's premises on April 2, blaming the management for her plight. She subsequently, succumbed to her burns at J J Hospital, Mumbai. The company, on the other hand, had claimed that some domestic problems had led to her suicide.

SANVIDHAAN BACHAO STIR: The Republican Party of India (RPI) would launch a `Sanvidhaan Bachao' (Save the Constitution) agitation all over the country to protest against the Vajpayee government's move to review the statute, RPI MP Prof Jogendra Kawade said.