MUMBAI: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’ announcement on Wednesday that the union government and Airports Authority of India (AAI) had decided to shift the high-frequency radar of Mumbai Airport from Dahisar to Gorai, thereby paving the way for redevelopment of buildings in Dahisar, has elicited an angry response from Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT). The party specifically objected to the circulation of a video of union civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu making the announcement and allegedly asking for votes for the BJP in return.
Claiming that the video was circulated by Tejasvee Ghosalkar, BJP candidate of Ward No 2, the Sena (UBT) lodged a complaint with the State Election Commission (SEC) and BMC commissioner Bhushan Gagrani, accusing the BJP of violating the electoral code of conduct. After State Election Commissioner Dinesh Waghmare told Gagrani to investigate, the latter conducted an investigation and said he found “nothing objectionable” since, according to him, the video was uploaded before 4.30 pm on Tuesday.
Fadnavis on Wednesday posted about the AAI’s decision on social media, saying that the union civil aviation minister had also given his approval and the Maharashtra government would give land for the alternate location in Gorai. “This will pave the way for redevelopment of buildings in the area,” he said.
Sena (UBT) MLA Aaditya Thackeray also tweeted about the issue on X, terming the civil aviation minister’s announcement “lies” and a “fake promise”. He challenged the BJP to make the cabinet approval note public.
“Do it first, don’t fool the people otherwise,” he said on X. “You have run the same script since 2014 before every election. For the last few decades this has been promised, said, assured, and more so since 2014 but never happened. Since 2014, the BJP has been in power in the Centre, state and Dahisar. All engines in the same hands, no progress on the issue. It is an issue that requires a cabinet approval from the Government of India but hasn’t happened since 2014. Dahisar is taken for granted. I had raised this question in the assembly and the answer was the same months ago, as is today.”
On January 14, the ministry of civil aviation wrote to Maharashtra’s urban development department, saying that the matter had been referred to the AAI meeting on January 12, which approved of the shifting. Twenty acres of land will be provided at Gorai by the state government and the cost of the relocation of the high-frequency receiver, including the development of infrastructure, will also be borne by the state.