‘BJP doesn’t want Thackeray memorial before ’17 civic polls’

MUMBAI: The Bal Thackeray memorial continues to be a thorny issue for the ruling saffron alliance as the BJP is not keen on the structure coming up at the city mayor's Shivaji Park residence before the 2017 BMC elections.
A large section in the BJP is of the view that the Sena may flaunt the memorial as its achievement in the run up to the 2017 civic elections.This explains why civic chief Ajoy Mehta’s statement on the civic budget presented before the standing committee refrained from mentioning about the Rs 1 crore allocation for the memorial.
“The municipal budget carries the BJP stamp. The BJP doesn’t want the memorial to come up before the 2017 civic elections,” said a Sena functionary on Friday, echoing the widespread resentment in the party over the escalating delay in commencing the memorial construction. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis cleared the administrative decks for the Thackeray memorial in November 2015, on the occasion of the late leader’s death anniversary, by setting up a trust, under the chairmanship of Sena president Uddhav Thackeray.
Fadnavis announced that the memorial would come up at the Mumbai mayor’s bungalow which, he added, would soon be handed over to the trust. However, there is growing unease in the Sena cadre as the state government appears in no hurry to hand over the bungalow. On the other hand, the BJP is wary of the Opposition’s response to move by Mantralaya to hand over the mayor’s Shivaji Park residence to the trust, it is learnt. “There is a Supreme Court ruling, which prevents official houses to be converted into a public memorial. There is ample reason to believe that the Opposition parties may challenge in the court of law the state government's order to transfer the mayor's bungalow to the memorial trust,” said a BJP functionary.
When the memorial was announced, the mayor was then expected to soon get a new address. However more than two months after the announcement, there has been no movement over the same. “It has not yet been decided where to shift the mayor,” said Trushna Vishwasrao, Sena group leader in the BMC. Standing committee chairman Yashodhar Phanse (Sena) said that it is for the BMC to decide upon the new location of the mayor’s official residence.