'Ordered removal of Tipu Sultan's name from Mumbai park': City guardian minister to District Collector
Mumbai Suburban District Guardian Minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha directed the Suburban District Collector to remove Tipu Sultan's name from the park in Malad. "If it must be named, we will follow the proper procedure. Nobody wants Tipu Sultan's name to be associated with the park," said Lodha.
FollowThe Maharashtra government, led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, has overturned the former Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) decision and removed Tipu Sultan's name from a garden in Malad, Mumbai. Mumbai Suburban District Guardian Minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha directed the Suburban District Collector to remove Tipu Sultan's name from a garden on Friday, January 27, 2023.
Taking to Twitter, Mangal Prabhat Lodha wrote in Marathi, "Finally, victory of the Right! After considering the complaints by Sakal Hindu Samaj and the demand by @iGopalShetty Ji in the DPDC meeting, the name Tipu Sultan was removed from the park in Malad. The ground was named after Tipu Sultan by the MVA government last year, and we had to protest!"
"When some people put up a banner, naming it Tipu Sultan Garden, locals fought against it. Firstly, it was never legally named. So I requested that the authorities remove the illegal banner," explained Lodha. Additionally, he said, "If it must be named, we will follow the proper procedure. Nobody wants Tipu Sultan's name to be associated with the park."
On January 26, 2022, Bajrang Dal members and other Hindu organisations opposed naming a garden after Tipu Sultan. Former Maharashtra minister and Congress leader Aslam Shaikh claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sent its goons to malign the country as there had been no conflict in the name of Tipu Sultan in the previous 70 years.
Meanwhile, reacting to the latest development, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) spokesperson Mahesh Bharat Tapase said that no government could gain popularity by renaming places or overturning previous government's decisions.
The current Maharashtra government has yet to unveil the garden's new name. However, sources claimed that the decision was made because Tipu Sultan's name is controversial in neighbouring Karnataka. Earlier, the BJP allegedly opposed the park's naming.
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