THANE:

’s high-pitch rhetoric against the Mumbai-Ahmedabad

project seems to have been fizzled out as the party’s corporators in the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) chose to overlook a long-pending proposal to allocate 1,949 hectares of land in the municipal limits for the highspeed train and and approved it amidst a din. The Sena is the ruling party in the

.

The municipal administration tabled the proposal on Friday at the 160-seater general body meeting for change of users of plots in the suburban pockets of Diva, Mhatardi, Dativli, Aagsen and Padle villages which are in the TMC limits, bordering Kalyan and Navi Mumbai municipal limits.

The

, which is implementing the project and involved in land acquisition and awarding compensation to land-owners, has proposed construction of a station at Mhatardi and identified a 17-hectare land for the same.

“Many of the plots were reserved for schools, hospitals, construction of a municipal ward committee office etc. The municipal administration prepared a detailed proposal in December 2018 and were eager to table it for discussion and sanction in the meeting of the general body of the TMC. The officer of the mayor, however, kept the proposal in abeyance since then,” a civic official said.

The Shiv Sena, which has been crusading the cause of the sons-of-soil, had voiced its stiff opposition to the project and claimed serious political motive behind linking Mumbai to Ahmedabad through a specially-laid 508km high-speed train track. Thane and neighbouring Palghar are having to forgo thousands of hectares of land for the corridor and the Shiv Sena has been saying that the project is aimed at promoting the interests of Gujarati speaking businessmen from Ahmedabad.

“On Friday, the proposal was tabled for discussion. However, there was no detailed discussion. In fact, the moment the agenda came up, the opposition NCP took a belligerent stand and assailed the Sena for its U-turn. Sena members retaliated in the same fervour and amid the chaos, the proposal to dereserve the plots was cleared without any discussion,” a civic official said.

“We were opposing certain projects and kept asking for an opportunity to present our objections including the land dereservation for the bullet train. However, the ruling party corporators bulldozed our request and went ahead approving the proposals. We never wanted to leave such important issues unattended but the Sena has set a wrong precedent by silencing opposition and securing okay to controversial projects amidst a din,’’ said NCP corporator Hanumant Jagdale.

“The Shiv Sena has been the most bitter critic of the BJP regime, both at the Centre and the state, for the last five years, irrespective of the fact that it was a beneficiary of the spoils of power. From the multi-crore Nanar oil refinery project in Konkan, to the bullet train project, the Sena has been opposing the BJP, accusing it of trampling on the rights of locals and the sons-of-the-soil. However, post 2019 results and the new camaraderie between the two saffron partners, all these contentious issues are taking a back seat,” he added.

Senior Sena functionary Naresh Mhaske said the Sena is not opposed to any debate or discussion if it is in the interest of the common citizens.