New sea links to be named after Vajpayee, Savarkar
The state cabinet has decided to name the Mumbai Trans-Harbour link after Atal Behari Vajpayee and the Versova-Bandra sea link after V D Savarkar.
The state cabinet on Wednesday passed a decision to name the Mumbai Trans-Harbour (MTHL) link after former PM Atal Behari Vajpayee and the Versova-Bandra sea link after Hindutva icon V D Savarkar. Deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had earlier written to chief minister Eknath Shinde to consider these proposals.
The MTHL is a 22-km-long project that connects Sewri with Chirle near Nhava Sheva. The project, which is likely to be completed by the end of the year, is being executed by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority. Interestingly, the earlier Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government had decided to name the MTHL after former chief minister A R Antulay, who hailed from Raigad district and had to resign in the wake of the cement scam in 1982.
Vajpayee already has a number of infrastructural edifices named after him: in Goa, the new bridge over the river Mandovi is Atal Setu while the world’s longest tubeway under the Rohtang pass is called Atal Tunnel. The Versova sea link, which will fall to Savarkar’s lot, is being constructed by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation and will take several years to be completed.
Historical icons of the current government already figure in Mumbai’s recent infrastructure: Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will name the Nariman Point-Worli stretch of coastal road after Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, the son of Chhatrapati Shivaji. A proposal for this is expected to be passed by the BMC, which is building the coastal road.
{{/usCountry}}Historical icons of the current government already figure in Mumbai’s recent infrastructure: Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will name the Nariman Point-Worli stretch of coastal road after Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, the son of Chhatrapati Shivaji. A proposal for this is expected to be passed by the BMC, which is building the coastal road.
{{/usCountry}}As governments are wont to do, earlier projects too have been named after their own heroes. The Worli-Bandra sea link was prefixed with PM Rajiv Gandhi’s name when it was opened many years ago. It was NCP chief Sharad Pawar who suggested the name at the inaugural function of the sea link, his reasoning being that Rajiv Gandhi was born in Mumbai and hence “connected” with the city.
{{/usCountry}}As governments are wont to do, earlier projects too have been named after their own heroes. The Worli-Bandra sea link was prefixed with PM Rajiv Gandhi’s name when it was opened many years ago. It was NCP chief Sharad Pawar who suggested the name at the inaugural function of the sea link, his reasoning being that Rajiv Gandhi was born in Mumbai and hence “connected” with the city.
{{/usCountry}}The Mumbai-Pune Expressway was named after the first chief minister of Maharashtra and Pawar’s mentor Y B Chavan, many years after it was built and operational. The Mumbai-Nagpur express highway will be named after Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray, something which the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government had decided and which the Shinde-Fadnavis has continued with.
Apart from the naming game, the renaming spree of the government has also been on in full strength with Aurangabad becoming Sambhajinagar and Osmanabad becoming Dharashiv. The decision to rename Aurangabad and Osmanabad was also taken by Shiv Sena chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on the second last day of his tenure, but the minutes were never confirmed. The renaming of the two cities has now been challenged in the courts.
