Eye on polls,parties revert to same old tricks

This proposal came only weeks after various parties demanded that Dadar and Mumbai Central stations,landmarks and historic stations of Mumbai,be named in the memory of Dr B R Ambedkar.

Recently,the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) demanded that the Dadar railway station be renamed Chaityabhoomi after the memorial of Babasaheb Ambedkar by the same name. Not to be outdone,the Congress also demanded that the station be renamed after the Dalit leader.

A few months ago,RPI leader Ramdas Athavale demanded that Mumbai Central station be renamed after Ambedkar. This is likely to conflict with the ambitions of the Shiv Sena,which wants to rename the station after Sunkersett,who played a significant role in the development of Mumbai during the British era.

“It is the responsibility of the political parties that the memory of someone who contributed to the wealth of the city,built educational institutions,led to the infrastructure development,among other things,be kept alive. While we remember popular leaders such as Ambedkar,we forget about people such as Sunkersett,” said Chonkar. The BMC will now write to the Western Railway with the proposal to rename the Mumbai Central station after Sunkersett.

Not even the much-awaited Lalbaug flyover was spared from naming controversies. While local Shiv Sena leader Ajay Chaudhary said the flyover should be named after Sant Dnyaneshwari — founder of the Warkari community — MNS leader and MLA Mahesh Sangale said it should be named after another saint. Another Sena leader,Ravindra Waikar,had some time back demanded that the flyover be named after S A Dange,the communist leader and a pillar of the trade union movement. Interestingly,the Russian Cultural Centre wanted the flyover to be named after cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

The BJP has also not been far behind,trying to woo the Gujarati vote bank in the city. Last month,a proposal by BJP corporator Pravin Shah to name a chowk as Uttar Gujarat Chowk on Shimpoli Road in Borivali was cancelled at the civic body’s general body meeting. But BJP corporators claimed the Sena chief was irked with the fact that the chowk would be named after another state. “I did not want to make this issue big,so I finally agreed to name the chowk after 26/11 hero Vijay Salaskar,” said Shah.