Mumbai:
Mumbai's iconic Mahalaxmi Race Course, the city's vital green lung, should be converted into a theme park, named after Bal Thackeray, his son and Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray has said. The suggestion came even as uncertainty looms large over the fate of the sprawling space whose 99-year lease draws to an end this month.
"There will be no problem if the race course is shifted out of the city... If anybody moots the idea of naming the park after Balasaheb, Shiv Sena would definitely endorse it," Mr Thackeray said on Monday.
In fact, Mumbai's Mayor, also a Shiv Sainik, has written to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the civic body that governs the city, urging them against extending the lease of the race course that expires on May 31. Significantly, the BMC is run by the Shiv Sena.
But in Mr Thackeray's idea of a park, many view a hidden agenda of the party which has been desperately scouting for a memorial for former Sena chief Bal Thackeray who died last year. The party had tried unsuccessfully to convert a portion of Shivaji Park, where Thackeray senior was cremated, into a memorial; the government said no structure could come up on the ground.
"It's a clever strategy on part of the Shiv Sena... So many months have passed and we have not heard about the issue. The message they want to send out to the people is that they are alive to the issue, now that elections are coming," said Kumar Ketkar, a senior journalist.
But the Royal Western India Turf Club, which had leased the 225-acre land from the BMC, remains hopeful. "The Mahalaxmi Race Course is a green lung of the city and should remain such," it said in a statement to NDTV.
But with instances of violation of lease agreements in the past, the Turf Club has reasons to be worried - it sublet parts of the plot to three restaurants in contravention of rules.
But environmentalists contend that a race course is still better than a Sena-proposed theme park which would only compound the city's traffic problems and add to pollution.