Why not give Port Trust land for Metro car-shed, Raj asks

MNS chief Raj Thackeray today said that the BJP-Shiv Sena government in Maharashtra was giving away huge tracts of land under the Mumbai Port Trust here to private builders, while chopping down trees in the Aarey Colony in the northern suburbs for a Metro car-shed.
"Why the government could not use Port Trust's land for Metro car-shed," Thackeray said, speaking at a campaign rally ahead of February 21 election to the Mumbai civic body, BMC.
The planned tree-felling in the leafy Aarey Colony area which is close to Sanjay Gandhi National Park for car-shed of Mumbai Metro is being opposed by activists.

Raj also targeted BJP over its newspaper advertisements.
Marathi papers charge 7.5-8 crore rupees for full-page advertisements, and apart from them the party was placing advertisements in English, Hindi, Gujarati papers, he said, asking what was the monetary source of BJP.
On Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis's jibe at him earlier today that Raj would only continue to do mimicry of other leaders, the MNS chief said he mimicked because he could see caricatures all around him.

"I can see so much contradictions and hollowness among people, soI am making fun of them," he said.
Commenting on cancellation of CM's rally in Pune this afternoon reportedly because of lack of audience, Raj said, "There were people, but nobody could see them because they were all 'transparent'."

BJP, which could not sew up alliance with Shiv Sena for civic elections this time, has often raised the issue of lack of 'transparency' in Shiv Sena-controlled BMC's functioning.