The 16.4-km-long Eastern Freeway project, which snakes its way from P D Mello Road to Ghatkopar-Mankhurd link Road, is at the centre of competing demands for its renaming.
While the Shiv Sena has sought that it be named after late party supremo Bal Thackeray, the Republican Party of India (A) led by Rajya Sabha MP Ramdas Athavale wants it to be christened after Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. Not to be undone, the BJP has jumped at the issue, with leaders demanding that the road be named after senior leader and union minister late Gopinath Munde.
Leader of the opposition Eknath Shinde and Shiv Sena leaders Diwakar Raote and Ramdas Kadam submitted a memorandum to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday, seeking that thoroughfare be named after Thackeray Sr along with the Mumbai-Nashik highway. The Sena has sought that the re-naming of these roads be undertaken on his birth anniversary on January 23 next year.
Athavale, who broke with the Shiv Sena to join hands with the BJP before the assembly elections, told dna that they were demanding that the Freeway be renamed after Ambedkar. "The area had a lot of Dalit settlements, slums and our party shakhas which made way for the project. We had demanded the renaming when Balasaheb was alive," said Athavale.
However, BJP leaders have demanded that the road be renamed after Munde. "I have demanded that the Freeway be named after Munde saheb," said BJP corporator Vitthal Kharotmal, who had contested the assembly polls from Anushaktinagar. He added that the demand had been made to PWD minister Chandrakantdada Patil and Munde's daughter and rural development minister Pankaja Munde.
"We will insist on Babasaheb's name. But will not oppose if it is named after anybody else," said Athavale.
In 2013, then Sewri MLA and the MNS group leader in the state legislative assembly Bala Nandgaonkar had demanded that the freeway be named after the late Sena chief.
The Sena also wants the flyover landing outside Kamla Mills on Senapati Bapat marg to be re-christened after senior leader and former assembly speaker Dattaji Nalawade. The party is demanding that the government to name the flyover from Pathardi to Adgaon Naka in Nashik after noted Marathi author and poet V.V Shirwadkar aka Kusumagraj.
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