Overnight poster drive by MVA slams govt.’s ‘development’ claims in Mumbai
Posters bearing photos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis were pasted in the intervening night of Friday and Saturday by the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) at multiple under-construction infrastructure projects in the city, bearing the text, “This is my development”.
In Mumbai and adjoining areas, which go to polls in the fth phase of the Lok Sabha election on May 25, a key poll plank of the Mayahuti (a coalition of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party) has been the big ticket infrastructure projects inaugurated by the government in the last couple of years. Some of them include the Atal Setu — India’s longest sea link, the Mumbai Coastal Road project, and the laying of foundation stones at public transportation projects.
In an e¥ort to counter the Mahayuti’s narrative, the Congress, which is a constituent party in the MVA (also comprising Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Sharad
Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party) said its workers put up posters at multiple ongoing infrastructure and transportation projects, including Gokhale Bridge in Mumbai’s western suburb of Andheri. The structure has been in the spotlight for being under construction for six years now, and was also in the news recently for an engineering ¦aw related to mismatched height between two bridges.
Other projects where posters were pasted include sites of the Mumbai Metro rail, which has been in the works for the last few years.
Congress workers said that their poster campaign strives to “highlight the people’s pleas regarding the crumbling state” of Mumbai, and the “painfully slow” pace of construction which has led to the common man facing multiple “commuting woes”.
A report authored by a Dutch rm based in the technology sector had, a few months ago, stated that an average Mumbaikar takes over 20 minutes to cover a 10 km stretch. The report added that the trafc situation in multiple cities has deteriorated due to insucient infrastructure.