Will give 500-sqft houses here itself: Aaditya tells Dharavi residents

Mumbai: Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray on Sunday assured Dharavi residents that if the opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is voted to power in the upcoming assembly elections, the existing tender for redevelopment would be cancelled and they would be provided with 500-square feet houses in the same locality.
“You will be threatened and lured with money to vacate your houses. But this is the time to fight for your rightful houses,” Thackeray told the gathering at the Mumbai Rakshan Sabha (save Mumbai rally) in Dharavi, blaming the Eknath Shinde-led state government for rendering Dharavi residents homeless and ‘handing over’ their land to the Adani group.
“The state government has issued orders to hand over 20 land parcels in Mumbai measuring 1,062 acres to Adani under the garb of redevelopment of Dharavi. The government is committed to work for Adani and the contractors. They want to shift slum dwellers on the salt pan lands in Kanjurmarg, Mulund and elsewhere. I have come here to assure you that, once elected to power in November, we will scrap the Dharavi tender if need be and give 500-sqft houses in the same location. We will not allow the shifting of Dharavi,” he said.
Representatives from the Adani group said they do not respond to political allegations.
At the rally, Thackeray also claimed that the Shinde government was committed to safeguarding the interests of contractors and it had pushed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) into a ₹2-lakh crore deficit.
“When our term in the BMC ended in 2022, the civic body had a surplus of ₹92,000 crore while now, it has a ₹2 lakh crore deficit. The government is also guilty of a ₹600-crore scam in road repairing over past two years. If things continue like this, BMC will not be able to draw the salaries of its staff, forget pensions and gratuity,” he said.
The Shiv Sena (UBT) leader also accused the government of handing over a land plot behind Mumbadevi temple in south Mumbai to a Nagpur-based contractor as part of the temple redevelopment plan.