MNS gets Mumbai chawls, housing societies to back its hawking zone drive
MNS workers are visiting housing societies, holding meetings with the office-bearers and helping them draft objections against hawking zones
The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has aggressively started targeting housing societies and chawls in its campaign against the hawking zones demarcated by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
As part of the campaign, MNS workers are visiting these societies, holding meetings with the office-bearers and helping them draft their objections against hawking zones.
“We have managed to get at least 70 housing societies to file their objections in the Dadar-Mahim belt,” said MNS spokesperson Sandeep Deshpande. Similarly, the party’s Byculla unit is busy holding meetings at various places like Nagpada and Mazgaon to drum up support of the chawl dwellers against the proposed hawking zones. “We cannot allow the hawkers’ menace to aggravate any further. The hawker pitches are done as per whims and fancies of the officials without taking into account the existing infrastructure or the traffic conditions,” said MNS leader Sanjay Naik.
The BMC has demarcated 85,891 hawking pitches across the city, which has met with stringent opposition from both politicians and the citizens.
Last week, MNS chief Raj Thackeray conveyed an emergency meeting of the MNS office-bearers at his residence. He asked them to aggressively oppose the hawking zones, which he said had violated all rules and regulations. MNS leaders were also irked as the area around Raj’s residence was tagged as hawking zone by the civic body while the area around Matoshree, the residence of his estranged cousin Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, has no such hawking zone. The BMC has demarcated 20 hawking pitches in two lanes near Krishnakunj, which is Raj Thackeray’s residence. MNS leaders have alleged that the Sena, which is ruling the BMC, of indulging in low-level politics by resorting to this move.
The BMC’s list of hawking pitches first met with opposition in 2015 when residents protested against allotments outside their houses, following which the list was withdrawn. But the civic body republished the same list in November last year and invited citizens’ suggestions and objections. The civic body will accept suggestions until January 31 and make changes to the list after considering them.