Mumbai: The age‑old tug of war over the name of Maharashtra’s capital has sparked again after Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh made comments at an IIT Mumbai function two days ago. He said, “I thank God that IIT Bombay’s name was not changed to IIT Mumbai,” and added that, in the spirit of IIT‑Madras staying unchanged, IIT Bombay must keep its historic title.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) leader Raj Thackeray slammed the minister on X, calling the remark “clearly appears to be a symbol of the government’s mindset.” In his post he warned that the plot to split “Mumbai — which has always belonged to the Marathi people — from Maharashtra” had been stopped by Marathi leaders and the public, and that the long‑standing bitterness is resurfacing.
Thackeray also argued that the centre feels uneasy about the name “Mumbai” and prefers “Bombay,” claiming Jitendra Singh has no ties to the city or the state but is merely eager to curry favor with the top brass. He said that the government has a strategy to link the city and its metro region to Gujarat, urging Marathi residents to open their eyes to the danger.
The former chief also cited an earlier attempt by the centre to seize Chandigarh from Punjab as a temporary setback, adding a “similar” plan was “100 per cent brewing” for Mumbai. “They don’t want ‘Mumbai’ — they want ‘Bombay.’ Through this, an attempt to quietly take control of the city is definitely underway,” Thackeray warned, arguing that the central agency, industry, and others are already taking over the region and that Marathi people must see this for themselves.
His attack comes ahead of the forthcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections, where he and his kinsman Uddhav Thackeray—head of Shiv Sena (UBT)—are expected to rally on safeguarding the “Marathi Manoos” and oppose what they label the BJP‑led central government’s push to “separate” Mumbai from Maharashtra. MNS volunteers have already put up banners at the IIT campus reading “IIT Mumbai, Not IIT Bombay.”
The BJP blasted Thackeray’s allegations as “freestyle” and purely political, highlighting that the decision to officially adopt the name “Mumbai” was made during the Shiv Sena‑BJP state government’s tenure, and that a BJP leader was first to promote the name at the national level. Forward‑looking on social media, party media in‑charge Navnath Ban wrote, “It was BJP’s Ram Naik who, for the first time in Parliament, referred to it as ‘Mumbai’ instead of ‘Bombay’ and thereby established this change at the national level.” He added that the central government is investing in major Mumbai‑MMR projects—metro, bullet‑train, coastal road, and multimodal corridors—to elevate the city into a global financial hub, and that the “bogus Gujarat bogey” is a fear‑mongering tactic. Ban urged Mumbaikars to back Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, whom he says will steer Maharashtra to the top.
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