Sena back to Marathi campaign with Uddhav's son's school

Mon, May 12 02:52 AM

The Shiv Sena on Sunday relaunched its campaign for the Marathi language, and among the first institutions to face its brunt was the prestigious Bombay Scottish School in Mahim. While Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray's younger son studies at the school, his elder one passed out two years ago.

Demanding that all institutions with the word 'Bombay' in their name immediately switch to 'Mumbai', the president of the Sena's student's wing, Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena (BVS), said that the fact that even Bombay Scottish was targeted "only proves that our party and the leader are taking a strong stand, in spite of his sons being a part of the school".

At four locations, BVS activists targeted establishments with the name Bombay - apart from Bombay Scottish, a Bombay Dyeing showroom and the offices of The Times of India for its city supplement, Bombay Times.

"We are taking responsibility for all the four incidents," BVS president Abhijeet Panse said. "If Mumbai is Mumbai, then why still call it Bombay?"

Panse added that they acted "taking a cue from Saamna's editorial today" where the same point was raised.

While copies of Bombay Times were burnt in front of the paper's office at Chhatrapati Shivaji Treminus as well as at their Kandivili offices and press, activists tampered with the signboard of Bombay Dyeing's showroom's at Delisle Road. Earlier, some BVS workers wrote 'Mumbai Scottish' on the walls of Bombay Scottish.

"Why are we still acting subordinate to the West? Are we still slaves to the East India Company and the British rule? We have named this city Mumbai, so now it is the duty of all the citizens to call her by that name. They have remained adamant about it and we have now decided to take the relevant measures ourselves. We have the blessings of our seniors in this and we are only following Bal Thackeray and Uddhav's thoughts," said Panse.

"Our next course will be to make an appeal to the high court to change its name to Mumbai High Court. It is the court that sanctioned the renaming of the city, so how is it that it is still called the Bombay High Court?" he asked.

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