Maharashtra Chief Minster Uddhav Thackeray on Monday flagged off the trial run for Metro 2A and Metro 7 corridors, which run through the Western suburbs of Mumbai. The two lines are expected to ease travel in Mumbai’s western suburbs. While Thackeray showed the green flag to these trial runs, on the other side were the BJP leaders and workers who showed black flags to the Chief Minister during the ceremony.
During the inauguration of the trial run program of the Mumbai Metro line, BJP workers staged a protest under the headship of Mumbai BJP in-charge MLA Atul Bhatkhalkar. They didn’t only wave black flags, but also came with posters of “Maha Bhakaas Aghadi.” And chanted slogans against the Mahavikas Aghadi government by displaying placards outside the Akurli metro station, saying that the Metro work, which was in progress during the BJP government, was first hampered, then the project cost was increased and now millions of rupees have been spent on the advertisement for credit. Police later arrested the BJP workers including MLA Bhatkhalkar.
“The cost of the project has gone up by Rs 8,000 crore due to the decision of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to shift the Metro car shed from Aarey to Kanjurmarg. During the tenure of former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, the Thackeray government, with the help of the central government, put a brake on the fast-moving metro project. Now, the same Thackeray government is planning to inaugurate the trial run by spending a lakhs of rupees on the advertisement to steal the credit from Fadnavis’s project,” Bhatkhalkar said.