After initial resistance, the Shiv Sena has finally removed the makeshift memorial of party founder Bal Thackeray from Mumbai's sprawling Shivaji Park, where he was cremated a month ago. The Sainiks reportedly removed the memorial at around 3 am today. The removal took place in the presence of city mayor Sunil Prabhu.
Some Sena members tried to erect it at the other location in Shivaji Park when the police prohibited to do so.
Shiv Sena, which rules the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), would move a proposal seeking an alternative site for Thackeray’s memorial. Thackeray died on November 17 at his home in Mumbai. He was cremated the next day at the Shivaji Park, where he addressed his followers during Dussehra rallies for over 40 years.
As reported by Business Standard last week, the saffron party had committed that it would shift the makeshift memorial. Its party mouthpiece, Saamna, had said the memorial would be shifted on December 17 - exactly a month after Thackeray's death. Shiv Sena backtracked its earlier stand after senior party leader Subhash Desai, mayor Sunil Prabhu and Milind Narvekar, a close confidant of Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray held talks with the Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan. Simultaneously, Chavan and Uddhav had held talks on the necessity of removal of the memorial.
Chavan had said it would be illegal to create a memorial for Thackeray at Shivaji Park. He reminded the Sena that the ground was given for Mr Thackeray's funeral to accommodate the lakhs of people expected to turn up.
The permission for the structure on which Thackeray was cremated had been given for one day - November 18 - only. But the funeral plinth transformed into a memorial that the Sainiks called 'samadhi sthal.'
The party had earlier refused to shift out the memorial - a tented enclosure barricaded with bamboo poles and having huge posters of Thackeray - and demanded that it be turned into a permanent memorial. Shiv 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 to protect the make shift memorial. Furthermore, Sena MP Sanjay opined that the place where Balasaheb's last rites were conducted at the Shivaji Park is similar to Ayodhya. The sanctity of the place should be maintained.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which refused permission, was caught in a month-long deadlock with the Sena and served notices to Mayor Sunil Prabhu, who is from the party, and Sanjay Raut to remove the structure.
