After initial resistance, the Shiv Sena has finally removed the makeshift memorial to party founder Bal Thackeray from the Shivaji Park, where he was cremated a month ago. Party activists removed the memorial, a tented enclosure barricaded with bamboo poles and having huge posters of Thackeray, at around 3 am on Tuesday in the presence of city mayor Sunil Prabhu.
The Sena, which rules the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corp (BMC), would seek an alternative site for the memorial. Thackeray died on November 17 at his home here and was cremated the next day at Shivaji Park, where he addressed his followers during Dussehra rallies for over 40 years.
The permission for the structure on which Thackeray was cremated had been given for one day only—November 18. But the funeral plinth was transformed into a memorial that the Sainiks called samadhi sthal.
The party had earlier refused to remove the memorial and demanded it be turned into a permanent memorial. Sainiks had been camping at the park to guard the structure.
Former chief minister Manohar Joshi exhorted party members not to care if the law comes in the way of protecting the memorial. Sena MP Sanjay Raut opined the place where Balasaheb's last rites were conducted was similar to Ayodhya.
The Sena backtracked after senior party leader Subhash Desai, mayor Prabhu and Milind Narvekar, a confidant of party executive president Uddhav Thackeray, held talks with Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan. Simultaneously, Chavan and Uddhav had also held talks on the issue.
Chavan had said it would be illegal to create the memorial at Shivaji Park. He added the ground was given for Thackeray's funeral to accommodate the lakhs of people expected to turn up.
BMC, which refused permission for the memorial at the park, was caught in a month-long deadlock with the Sena and served notices to Mayor Prabhu and Raut to remove the structure.