Mumbai: A row erupted at a virtual meeting of the Market and Garden Committee of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation over giving the name of Tipu Sultan to a municipal garden in Govandi. The BJP corporators are said to have objected to the move tagging Sultan as an anti-Hindu, prompting a Samajwadi Party corporator to accuse the BJP of communalising the issue.
Responding to the commotion over the garden naming, Mayor Kishori Pedenekar said that the BJP was playing petty politics over the issue. The Shiv Sena-led Market and Garden Committee is reported to have sent back the naming proposal to the civil administration, seeking more details.
The Indian Express quoted Chairperson Pratima Khopade as said that the proposal has been referred back to the administration as the development work of the proposed garden has yet to be completed. But the mayor declined to comment on Sena's views on naming the garden after Tip Sultan, the Indian Express report said.
The BJP leader and corporator Bhalchandra Shirsat accused the Shiv Sena of exerting their power on others to silence the dissenting voice. He alleged that the saffron party would oppose any move to ennoble a person like Tip Sultan who was alleged to have killed Hindus and forcibly convert them to Islam. The Hindu's sentiments will be hurt if such a person gets the honour of this kind, the IE quoted Shirsat as said.
The IE reports also said that the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti had also registered their objection to renaming the garden after Tipu Sultan.
Reports suggested that Rukhsana Siddiqui, a corporator from the SP, had made the renaming proposal of the garden at Saahi Naka, near Deonar Dumping ground after Sultan to the Markets and Garden Committee on January 25, 2021. The committees accepted Siddiqui's proposal in June and sent it to the committee for its approval.
The BJP had also objected to the Shiv Sena Parliamentarian Rahul Shewale's proposal of naming an under-construction flyover on Ghatkopar-Mankhurd Link Road in Govandi after Sufi Saint Gharib Nawaz Moinuddin Chisti. The BJP wanted the flyover to be named after Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.