MUMBAI: The battle to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls scheduled to be held in the next few months is only heating up.
After state cabinet minister and Congress MLA Aslam Shaikh from Malwani constituency inaugurated a revamped ground in Malad with facilities like badminton court, volleyball court and open gymnasium with a board erected which called it as Tipu Sultan Sports complex, the BJP came out fiercely opposing the same. Shaikh had set up the facilities using his MLA funds.
BJP members said that Tipu Sultan indulged in killing of Hindus, destroying temples among other atrocities and therefore, such unauthorised name boards on open public grounds will not be tolerated. BJP's nominated corporator and spokesperson, Bhalchandra Shirsat, said that if there is no name officially given to the ground either by the BMC or the government, there is a question mark on why Shaikh was using the same while inaugurating the revamped space.
The Shiv Sena, currently ruling the BMC, said that there is no official proposal in the civic body that has approved such a name for the ground and that the BJP was unnecessarily making this a communal issue. Mayor Kishori Pednekar also said that back in 2013, the BJP MLA Ameet Satam had lent support to naming a road in M west ward after Tipu Sultan which was opposed by Satam who said there was mischief done to add his name into the official civic document. Pednekar said that they would like the ground to be named after Rani of Jhansi. Satam, in turn, threatened to file a police complaint against Pednekar for tampering with civic records to purposefully add his name stating that he never supported any such proposal.
When TOI contacted Shaikh, he said that the ground has been referred to as Shaheed Tipu Sultan playground since the past many years. Shaikh also showed official documentation of the state government and also MMRDA authorities which mentioned it as Shaheed Tipu Sultan playground . "It is clear that the BJP is trying to indulge in such stunts ahead of the upcoming BMC polls. If they had problems with the name of the playground, they should have opposed the name in the past when it appeared in all official documents," said Shaikh.
