Amid the ruling BJP’s much-discussed overdrive to rename cities and towns across the country, its alliance partner Shiv Sena on Tuesday rooted for naming the purposed Rs 46,000 crore Nagpur-Mumbai Super Communication Express (NMSCE) after its late party chief Bal Thackeray.
Senior Sena leader and State PWD Minister Eknath Shinde met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP along with a delegation of party MLAs and submitted a memorandum, demanding that the NMSCE be christened after late Thackeray.
The Sena’s demand came ahead of the sixth death anniversary of late Thackeray who passed away on November 17, 2012. The demand should be viewed in the context of a brewing clamour in some sections of the BJP for naming the ambitious NMSCE after Prime Minister A B Vajpayee, who died on August 16, 2018.
In its memorandum, Shinde stated: “It was the then then Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray who was the architect of the country’s first-ever Expressway — the Mumbai-Pune Yeshwantrao Chavan Expressway – which was constructed during the 1995-1999 Shiv Sena-BJP alliance Government. BJP’s then PWD Minister Nitin Gadkari also played a key role in the construction of this Expressway”.
“Even today, the people remember Mumbai-Pune Expressway as late Thackeray’s major contribution towards development in Maharashtra. Incidentally, the second major expressway is also being constructed in the state under the saffron alliance regime. Keeping this in view, the Sena’s MPs and MLAs want the State Government to honour late Balasaheb by naming the NMSCE after him,” the Sena Minister said.
Shinde said that several MLAs had met him and requested him to take up the issue of naming NMSCE after late Thackeray. “Since Balasaheb’s dream of constructing the country’s first Expressway was realised during the Sena-BJP Government, it is in the fitness of things that the Maharashtra Government names the NMSCE in memory of the late Sena chief. We look forward to the Maharashtra Government coming out with a formal notification in this regard very soon,” the Minister said.
Given the continued frosty relationship between the two saffron parties and the fact that the Sena has not deviated from its oft-repeated stand that it would not contest any elections in future in alliance with the BJP, it remains to be seen if Fadnavis will agree to naming NMSCE after late Thackeray or will the BJP use Shinde's request as a chip to bargain with the Sena into agreeing to ally with it in the forthcoming Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in the State.
The work on the land acquisition for the NMSCE, a pet project of Fadnavis, has more or less been completed. The foundation stone for the project is expected to be laid soon.
The 793 km Nagpur-Mumbai Super Communication Expressway will connect Nagpur, Amravati, Aurangabad, Ghoti with Mumbai. The eight-lane is expected to be completed in a time-bound manner by 2019-2020.
The Expressway will benefit 22 districts in the state in terms of development. The expressway will reduce the travelling time between Mumbai and Nagpur to eight hours from 16 hours currently. The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) is the nodal agency for the execution of the project.
Ironically enough, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray had in December 2016 threatened to launch an agitation in protest against the acquisition of fertile land for the NMSCE. Through an editorial published in Sena’s official mouth-piece “Saamana” had promised the farmers that Sena cadres would hit the streets in their support if required if any effort was made to acquire fertile lands of farmers for the project.
However, Uddhav toned down his opposition to the NMSCE earlier this year, after Fadnavis took him into confidence and convinced him about the benefits of the project.
On his part, Fadnavis has so far kept the Sena leadership in good humour. So much so that early last week, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) – under the advice from the Maharashtra Government – handed over the documents of the bungalow of Mumbai Mayor at Shivaji Park in north-central Mumbai to the Balasaheb Thackeray Memorial Public Trust (BTMPT) for the construction of a memorial for late Thackeray.
Built in 1928 in an area spread over four acres, the mayor’s bungalow was proposed in 2016 as a site for late Thackeray’s memorial. The bungalow plot admeasuring 11,500 sq metre, has been given to the BTMPT at a nominal lease of Rs 1 per annum for 30 years. Being a heritage structure, the BTMPT will not making any structural changes in converting the Mayor bungalow into the Thackeray museum.
The BTMPT is expected to organise the ground-breaking ceremony for the Thackeray memorial at the site on January 23, 2019, the birth anniversary of the late Sena founder.
