BJP and Shiv Sena at odds over Urdu center in Mumbai

The construction of an Urdu learning center in the Agripada neighborhood of south Mumbai has BJP and Shiv Sena legislators at odds with one another on Tuesday. In a calling attention motion in the legislative assembly, BJP MLA Mihir Kotecha brought up the issue of the Urdu learning center and charged the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi regime with engaging in appeasement politics. “The previous Shiv Sena UBT government had started to see green everywhere, and in a bid to appease a particular minority community, it forced the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to construct the centre instead of the originally planned industrial training institute (ITI),” Kotecha stated, requesting that an ITI be built. Cabinet Minister Uday Samant said the decision has already been challenged in the Bombay High Court, and as per the order from the chief secretary, the work has been halted. The BJP MLAs, however, continued to raise the issue, claiming that the previous government had indulged in appeasement politics. Samajwadi Party (SP) MLA Rais Shaikh pointed out that it was Shiv Sena MLA Yamini Jadhav who had first moved the proposal to set up the Urdu learning centre, and every procedure was followed while going ahead with the plan. BJP MLA Nitish Rane demanded that officials who gave land for the centre be suspended. He also claimed that the Agripada area already had Urdu schools, which students did not attend. Responding to the allegation, MLA Jadhav said, “There is already an ITI in my constituency. What we are building is not an Urdu school but a centre. It is a language like any other in the country and should not be linked to a particular religion. People in my constituency had demanded such a centre, and based on that, I had proposed the same.” Following Jadhav’s clarification, Skill Development Minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha said that the issue should not be blown out of proportion, as the chief secretary has already stayed the construction following a court case. (With inputs from PTI)