Pune bandh: NCP says Sena-BJP calling kettle black

Supporting the Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) move to remove the statue of Dadoji Konddev from Lal Mahal past midnight, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Wednesday said the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had also removed the statue of Ram Ganesh Gadkari from Shivaji Park in Mumbai and erected the statue of Meenatai Thackeray in its place in 1996.

The BJP and the Shiv Sena had condemned the NCP and the Congress for removing the statue past midnight.

NCP spokesperson Ankush Kakade said, “The NCP has no objection about erecting the statue of (Sena supremo’s wife) Meenatai Thackeray. But since BJP and Shiv Sena leaders are continuously criticising the NCP for removing the Konddev statue past midnight, we want to remind them that the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation had also removed the statue of Gadkari from Shivaji Park on January 5, 1996, to erect the statue of Meenatai in the same place.”

“We are not even aware whether the civic body had passed the resolution for removing Gadkari’s statue,” Kakade added. 

The NCP said that usually the administration and the police remove all controversial statues or religious structures past midnight, to avoid any untoward incident.

“The PMC has removed various religious structures late at night. It recently shifted the Dnyaneshwar Paduka temple on Fergusson College Road after midnight. There is nothing wrong in shifting the statue of Konddev past midnight. The civic body has followed all legal provisions in shifting the statue,” he said.