Angry Shiv Sena boycotts PM’s Smart City launch in Pune

After the verbal spat between Shiv Sena and BJP in the past few days, the Sena boycotted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Smart City Mission inauguration event in Pune on Saturday. Congress workers held a protest at the venue and NCP expressed displeasure over a last-minute invitation that was sent to the Pune mayor to attend the event. However, the Prime Minister avoided making any political comment and endorsed his pet project of Smart City. Pune is one of the cities chosen by the Centre for the mission.

“There was a time in our country when urbanisation was considered a big problem. But, I feel differently. We should not consider urbanisation as a problem, but consider it as an opportunity. People in the economic field consider cities as a growth centre... If anything has the potential to mitigate poverty it is our cities. That is why people from poor places migrate to cities, as they find opportunities there,” Mr Modi said.

As the Prime Minister launched 14 smart city projects in Pune, and initiated 69 other works in other smart cities in the country, he made a plea for working in a comprehensive, inter-connected and vision-oriented manner and not in piece-meal. “There cannot be a transformation as long as we take things in bits and pieces. We need to adopt a comprehensive, inter-connected and vision-oriented approach,” he said. Mr Modi added that every city has a distinct identity and the country’s people “who are the smartest” should decide on how to develop urban spaces.

Earlier in the day, local leaders of all prominent political parties, except BJP, announced that they would boycott the event and accused BJP of hijacking the programme.

Shiv Sena, which is at loggerheads with BJP following BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandari’s comparison of Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray with the character of Asrani in Sholay, said that the party would stay away from the event.

“We are going to boycott the event and no party office-bearer will attend it,” Shiv Sena Pune unit president Vinayak Nimhan said.

The NCP, which is ruling the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), was not invited and its mayor’s name was also not mentioned on the invitation card. Mayor Prashant Jagtap said the invitation was given to him at the last moment and the permission to welcome the PM at the airport as a first citizen of the city, too, was denied. “It clearly shows that BJP and the Centre are giving secondary treatment to PMC, whose machinery has been working for the event. I won’t attend the event,” the mayor said. Later, a press release issued by the Chief Minister’s Office said the CM held a telephonic conversation with Mr Jagtap, stating that the omission of the mayor’s name from the invitation card was inadvertent.

Congress leader Arvind Shinde said, “The treatment non-BJP corporators at the hands of BJP and the government is quite insulting and that is why, we have decided to boycott the event and stage protest to condemn the high-handedness of the organisers and the BJP leadership.” Abhay Chhajed, another Congress leader, said that in

Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) project, the UPA government’s flagship programme, there was a place for underprivileged sections. However, in the ‘Smart City’ project, poor people have no place, he said.