Activists' group supports Congress

Mumbai: A group of citizens and activists have called out the Shiv Sena after a video of its Lok Sabha candidate Gajanan Kirtikar surfaced showing him supporting the car shed for Metro 3 at Aarey Milk colony stating that it was ‘not a forest’.

The Sena earlier said that it stood for conservation of biodiversity at Aarey during the BMC elections of 2017. Amid this, the Aarey Conservation Group (ACG) has extended support to INC candidate Sanjay Nirupum who is contesting against Mr Kirtikar from the Mumbai North West constituency. However, Mr Kirtikar also said that the transplantation and replantation against the metro work at Aarey would help recover the loss of green cover.

Mr Nirupam  has promised to prevent development in the green area, claimed activists suppo-rting the Congress candidate. According to them, the Congress leader said that once elected, he would cancel the metro work at Aarey colony.

“After the BMC elections, the corporators of Sena, Congress and MNS voted against de-notification of 33 hectares of land at Aarey for the metro car shed and notified the entire Aarey as a green zone in the development plan. Looks like Mr Kirtikar does not consider the view of Sena’s corporators,” said Amrita Bhattacharya, a member of ACG.

The citizens group stated that they were expecting the same stance from Mumbai Congress president Milind Deora. Acti-vists supporting the Con-gress claimed that the INC manifesto elaborated on conservation of en-vironment and natural resources like mangro-ves, rivers and forests.

“Even the senior leader of the Sena has kept mum about the Aarey issue. Mr Nirupam has time and again raised the issue,” said Stalin Dayanand, project director of Vanashakti.

Even the Congress manifesto is more about conservation practices rather than showing diversion of forests and environment clearances as achievements like the BJP,” said Stalin Dayanand, project director of Vanashakti.