Mumbai mayor compares Modi with German dictator Hitler

Mumbai, July 20: Mumbai Mayor and Shiv Sena leader Snehal Ambekar has compared Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the late German dictator Adolf Hitler.

In an interview with the Afternoon Despatch & Courier, 43-year-old Ambekar also fancied herself akin to a chief minister and desired a red-beacon vehicle which bestows status on the position she occupies.

In the interview titled 'Modi's rule is quite Hitler-esque', she said: "I even admire Narendra Modi for his self-reliant way of working. But at some level, I feel his rule is quite like Hitler..."

"This is bound to happen when power is concentrated in the hands of one man," Ambekar, a first-time municipal corporator, said.

Elected as the city's seventh woman and first Dalit woman mayor in September 2014, Ambekar has been in the limelight for some time for seeking a red beacon for her vehicle.

Now, the former LIC officer claimed that her position in the city was akin to the chief minister.

"The mayor has constant emergencies, as well as we go to receive VVIPs as representatives of the masses. If a chief minister has red beacon, a mayor's status is pretty similar in terms of a city," she said.

"I believe there is nothing wrong for a mayor in using a red beacon fitted car," she said in the interview.

Ambekar's comments were the latest in a series of the barbs the Shiv Sena has fired at the BJP. Both the parties are allies in the centre and Maharashtra.

PTI