First it was the name row over Bombay and Mumbai. Now, the Shiv Sena has targetted Pune. On May 12, the Shiv Sena’s student wing, Bharati Vidyarthi Sena (BVS), issued a warning to establishments that were still going with the name Poona, to switch to Pune. They gave them a week’s deadline—it lapsed on Monday but they have extended it.

To the 500-odd outfits—stores, hospitals, colleges, and clubs—the demand has come like a bolt from the blue. The board of one of the stores in the city has read Poona for the past 100 years, another for 80. “We have had generations before us running the establishment under this name. How can anyone expect us to be comfortable with anything else?” asks one of storekeepers.

The process involving a change of name is cumbersome—shopkeepers say they would need to submit applications to at least six different offices. “It is time consuming and costly. And then it’s also not a government order like it was in the case of establishments having to put up the names of their shops in Marathi,” said another shopkeeper.

Meanwhile, Ajay Shinde, city president BVS, said that by calling for a name change, they were continuing their efforts started two years ago when they ensured that every establishment put up its boards in Marathi too.

He calls this “Part II” of the campaign and is emphatic that soon there will be no trace of Poona in the city. The student leader is planning a press conference soon where he says he will reveal all: the logic and intentions behind the move and how they plan to set about this “crusade” in the city.

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