The Shiv Sena wants British names of seven local and suburban railway stations to be replaced with Marathi names in Mumbai. Yesterday a team of Shiv Sena representatives met Union Home minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi to take up the demand. State Transport minister Diwakar Raote and Shiv Sena lawmaker Shrirang Barne were also part of the team. If their demand is met, Mumbai Central station will be replaced with the name Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, Grant Road station will be named as Gamdevi, Charni Road will be named as Girgaum and Elphinstone Road as Prabhadevi.
Shiv Sena lawmaker Arvind Sawant said, “Maximum railway stations are named after the areas they are located in. There are few stations where the name of the station is different from the name of the area. We demanded that such stations should be named after the name of the area. Mr. Sawant said that Rajnath Singh was also positive regarding their demand. He said, “The Home Minister Rajnath Singh has given us his assent on changing the names of the stations at the earliest“
During the earlier BJP-Shiv Sena regime between 1995 and 1999, the station Victoria Terminus was rechristened as the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. Last year, a new station was constructed on Mumbai’s suburban rail tracks and named as ‘Ram Mandir’ in 2016. The MP, Mr. Sawant, said, “This will not in any way be seen as Shiv-Sena’s demand for any Marathi-station of the city. The simple logic for the change is, all railway stations are by and large named after the name of the area they are located in. For example, Bandra, Sion, Chembur, Santacruz and so on. However, there are some stations where the commonly known name of the area is different from the name of the station, and the name is as per what the British would call the area.”
The lawmaker Mr. Sawant said, “If the area has a Gamdevi post-office and a Gamdevi police station, why the railway station is alone called Grant Road? Similarly, in and around Currey Road, the entire zone is called Lalbaug. Then why should the station is called Currey Road?”
The similar reason they have shown in front of Union Minister Rajnath Singh for another 5 local stations. Earlier, the Sena had taken up the issue with Union railway minister Suresh Prabhu, but they did not get the appropriate response from him.
The Shiv-Sena has always been an advocate of calling places by their original names, not by the names that were left by the British people. The Shiv-Sena was also instrumental in getting the city’s name changed to Mumbai from the Bombay. The party only wants to highlight the oasis Indian culture and education, which is very similar to BJP’s thought process.
