In an effort to keep its aggrieved ruling alliance partner Shiv Sena in good humour in the run-up to the crucial Lok Sabha polls, the BJP-led Maharashtra Government on Tuesday sanctioned Rs 100 crore for the ambitious Bal Thackeray memorial, being developed at the erstwhile Mayoral bungalow at Shivaji Park in north-central Mumbai.
The State Cabinet, at its weekly meeting presided over by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, approved the decision to sanction Rs 100 crore for the Thackeray memorial.
The State-run Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), which functions directly under control of the Chief Minister, will make available Rs 100 crore for the Thackeray memorial project.
The development came on the eve of the 93rd birth anniversary of Thackeray on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which owned Mayor's bungalow-compound land, would hand over the papers transferring the land to the Balasaheb Thackeray National Memorial Public Trust (BTMPT) ser up for the construction of a memorial for the late Sena chief.
Built in 1928 in an area spread over four acres of land, the mayor’s bungalow was proposed in 2016 as a site for late Thackeray’s memorial. The bungalow plot admeasuring 11,500 sq metre, has been given to the BTMPT at a nominal lease of Rs 1 per annum for 30 years.
Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray will perform Ganesh puja at the memorial site on Wednesday.
The BTMPT is expected to lay foundation stone for the construction of Thackeray sometime next month, for which the ruling Shiv Sena might invite Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Informed Sena sources said that the party may hold a special screening of “Thackeray”, a Hindi and Marathi biopic made on the life and times of the late Shiv Sena chief.
Meanwhile, while announcing the sanction of Rs 100 crore the Thackeray memorial project, Maharashtra Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said that the relations between the BJP and Shiv Sena, which have been electoral alliance partners for the past three decades, would continue to remain in the months and years to come.
Though the sanction of Rs 100 crore for the Thackeray memorial project, the ruling BJP has once again extended an olive branch to the miffed Shiv Sena, which has repeatedly made it clear that it would go it alone in all the elections in future.
The nature of bitterness prevailing between the two saffron alliance partners could be gauged from the fact Sena president UddhavThackeray had on January 13 hit out at BJP president Amit Shah, saying that no party should consider the Sena as "weak" and that “no one is either born yet or will ever take birth who can defeat my party”.