Mumbai : A day after FPJ reported that the BMC had forgotten Bhagoji Keer, the man who donated an acre by the sea at Shivaji Park for the civic crematorium, the Shiv Sena and the MNS were competing to set things right.
Kishori Pednekar, chairperson of the civic works committee, went to the G-North ward office and sought an explanation from the ward officer Sharad Ughade and the health officer Dr Satish Badge as to why the bust of Bhagoji Keer had been lying in the cupboard for two years.
Ughade sought to pass the buck on to MHADA which had been entrusted with the renovation work but Pednekar said the onus lay on the BMC to honour the man who donated such a prime plot to it. She sought a written explantion from Ughade. Ughade said he would get the bust installed though the BMC itself.
Meanwhile, Prakash Patankar, former MNS corporator from Shivaji Park, got the bust cleaned and took it away, saying that he would get it installed himself.
“I had initiated the project to install a bust of Bhagoji Keer in the crematorium but I lost the elections. However, it is my responsibility to install it and I will do it,’’ he said.
Patankar said that a brief introduction about Bhagoji Keer would be given on a plaque on the pedestal for the bust. He said that the bust would remain in the MNS office for a fortnight till it was ready to be unveiled by Bhagoji Keer’s descendants.
Meanwhile, MNS worker Shrikant Bhoite said that he had been following up the case of the missing bust for the past two years but neither BMC nor MHADA had
listened to him.
