Corporation wants carpenters to make Mayor's chair

Carpenters, get your saws and hammers out. The civic body has promised to make a copy of the Mayor's chair that was destroyed by the BJP and Shiv Sena corporators on the day the Dadoji Konddeo statue was removed from the Lal Mahal. The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is now looking for some good carpenters and wants to complete the work by next month.

The historical chair that was thrown out of the third floor window of the PMC building and badly damaged was built in 1954. It would have cost about Rs 50,000 now, as it was made of Indian teakwood and pupenshiru (shise) timber, said experts.  

Mayor Mohansingh Rajpal said that the chair was of great  historical value and the PMC had lost a unique artifact, one which was aesthetically carved and uniquely cushioned.

"The chair was quite heavy and it is really sad that it was thrown down from the third floor of the PMC building," Rajpal said. "To prevent such unfortunate incidents in future we are making a stronger chair using the same wood. I was proud that the chair, which I was sitting on was once occupied by India's first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on his visit to the PMC in the 60s."

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Sandeep Khandwe, executive engineer, establishment, PMC, said that the chair being used by the Mayor for the time being was hired from Gokhale Mandavwale. The new chair will be ready by mid-February for the next general body meeting.

"The new chair will be made of teakwood and will have carvings and cushions similar to the earlier one," he said.

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Sunil Parkhi, the PMC secretary, said the PMC did not have any formal record of the chair regarding when it was purchased and from where.

"Fortunately, there is another chair similar to the Mayor's chair and we are making enquiries about the style of craft and the carpenters," Parkhi said.