• Friday, March 29, 2024

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How environment has fallen prey to Maharashtra political drama

A view of the construction site of a metro train car shed in the Aarey colony in Mumbai on October 7, 2019. – (Photo by PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP via Getty Images)

By: Shubham Ghosh

UDDHAV Thackeray, the former chief minister of the western Indian state of Maharashtra, on Friday (1) lashed out at the new government led by Eknath Shinde from his own party but with a different ally in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Thackeray, who quit the post earlier this week after his MVA (Maha Vikas Aghadi or Maharashtra Development Front) government was reduced to a minority after a faction led by Shinde revolted, vented his anger after the new government reversed a key decision of his government related to the environment.

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Speaking at the Sena Bhavan office in Mumbai, the state capital, Thackeray said the new government’s decision to shift the Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Line of Mumbai Metro Railway out of the ecologically sensitive Aarey Colony would have an environmentally disastrous consequence.

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“Don’t project anger for me on Mumbaikars. Don’t change the proposal for the metro shed. Don’t toy with the environment of Mumbai,” the former chief minister, who has found himself in the middle of a battle with Shinde over the ownership of the actual Sena, said.

After becoming the chief minister in 2019, Thackeray had halted the construction of the metro corridor and appointed a panel to look for alternative sites. The previous MVA government also designated Aarey Colony, a vast green expanse in North Mumbai, as a reserve forest.

Thackeray’s government was embroiled in a tussle with the Narendra Modi government in New Delhi over the proposed project in Mumbai’s Kanjurmarg, thereby delaying it.

Thackeray also said in his address that voters should have a right to recall.

“Those who have formed the new government, have made a so-called Shiv Sainik as the CM. I was saying the same thing 2.5 years ago. The same formula was decided between me and Amit Shah that Shiv Sena and BJP will share the CM position for half term each. Whatever is happening today would have happened with respect,” he said.

“Why BJP did it now and not then when Shiv Sena was officially with you in the state and at Centre,” he asked.

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