While the state government has already taken a decision to name the proposed Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) after late socialist D B Patil, a section of protesters said it happened only after a long fight. And, they will not sit till the nameplate of the airport does not come up in the name of Patil.
For the past two years, villagers under the banner of the All-Party Action Committee (APAC) were agitating aggressively. They assembled in large numbers on several occasions and stopped work at the airport. Police registered cases against organizers as they staged protests and assembled more than 20,000 in number without the police permission.
Dashrath Bhagat, a BJP leader who has been championing the cause of project-affected villagers during the agitation says that they have got the name of the airport after a long fight. “The state government used police power to suppress the protest,” said Bhagat, adding that the credit goes to the villagers who continue their fight. “We will not sit idle and continue the fight until the nameplate of late Patil is not fixed at the airport,” said Bhagat.
Meanwhile, former MP Ramseth Thakur said that he would not go after taking credit. “I am happy that the name of the airport is given after the late Patil. But their fight for a number of issues of PAPs will continue,” said Thakur.
On the contrary, a number of leaders from Shiv Sena took to social media and shared former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackery’s last day decision and took the credit for the airport after late Patil.
Even Panvel MLA Prashant Thakur gave the credit to villagers and said that they got the name of the airport because of their fight.
In 2020, former Urban Development Minister Eknath Shinde had written a letter to the CIDCO asking it to propose that the airport should be named after Bal Thackeray. Even former CM Uddhav Thackeray said that it was not his decision to name the airport after Bal Thackeray.
