Uddhav announces his candidature for CM

MUMBAI: A day before the Assembly polls, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray announced he wants to be the chief minister, if his party is voted to power.

“If a common man like Narendra Modi can become prime minister, can’t a Thackeray become the chief minister,” Uddhav said, in an exclusive interview to Saamana, the Sena’s mouthpiece. It will be published today.

Uddhav said no Thackeray had ever contested the polls till now, but they have not relinquished duty either.

“The people of Maharashtra are supreme, they will decide. Delhi cannot decide who Maharashtra’s chief minister will be,” Uddhav said.

In the interview, Uddhav also hit back at BJP president Amit Shah for his comments about the Sena being a “mouse that needed to be shown its place”. The people of Maharashtra will not forgive him for the analogy, Uddhav said.

Shah had made the reference during a rally in Aurangabad. “Maharashtra will never bear the insult of people calling it a mouse. They do not know the power of Maharashtra. People are angry and they will bear the brunt of this,” Uddhav said. MUMBAI: The City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco) has been told to pay the market rate for 157 acres of land to a Kalyan family that had held a feudal title. The corporation had taken over the family’s land for the Navi Mumbai airport.

The Bombay high court on Tuesday said the land, belonging to the VD Biwalkar family, was never vested with the state government, which means it could not have been taken over by Cidco without following provisions of the Land Acquisition Act. Under the current Cidco scheme, the family should get compensation for the land, said the division bench of justice Anoop Mohta and justice Amjad Sayed.

Cidco will have to pay the owners at market price (approximately Rs50,000/sqm) for the entire tract of land, and also give them 19.625 acres of the devel oped land free of cost, according to its policy.

Biwalkar had held the title of Inam, which was upheld in 1939 by a verdict of the Privy Council. Claiming ownership of the land on the basis of this verdict, the family filed a peti tion asking the court to direct the state and Cidco to either return the land or acquire it under the provisions of Land Acquisition Act.