Aaditya Thackeray on Shinde govt’s Aarey move

“The new government should not cast their anger for us on to Mumbai. I request the new government to let the metro carshed in Mumbai itself and not harm the forests here,” he said.

In a series of tweets, the Sena leader urged new government to reconsider its decision.

“Since I have to attend sitting of State Assembly today, I will be missing out on the protest for Aarey Forest and the MMRCL land. I humbly urge new Govt to reconsider its decision. Don’t cast the hate for us, on to our beloved Mumbai,” Thackeray tweeted.

“Line 6 would anyway need a carshed, either at Kanjurmarg (which was originally thought of in 2018) or at Pahadi Goregaon. Having studied both, both are feasible for Line 3 too. Metros don’t go to carshed after every trip, they need stabilising lines, that are missing for Line 3,” he added.

He further said that this is about sustainable development and better planning.

“This is about Mumbai’s development and we staying here instead of being handed over a badly planned project that destroys our Mumbai’s Aarey Forest,” he added.

The new Shinde-led government in Maharashtra, in its first cabinet meeting, proposed to move the Metro-3 carshed project back to Mumbai’s Aarey forest, an 1,800 acre area which is often termed as the city’s ‘green lung’.

The previous Uddhav Thackeray-led state government had decided to build the carshed in Kanjurmarg instead of Aarey Colony.

Earlier, Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole said the Shinde government’s decision was its first blow on the city as the move played with the health of people.

Patole said that the previous government had decided to build the carshed of Metro Line 3 in Kanjurmarg instead of Aarey in view of the environmental damage.

In 2014, then chief minister Prithviraj Chavan proposed the Metro-3 car shed at Aarey. Later, Devendra Fadnavis, who succeeded Chavan, went ahead with the same site. However, the project was stalled by green activists who opposed the cutting of trees in Aarey.

In 2019, the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress coalition government in the state reversed the decision and shifted the Metro-3 car shed to a site in Kanjurmarg.