Mumbai: SoBo residents press for pagadi to ownership conversion

The Bharatiya Janata Party BJP Foundation Day programme at the partyrsquos Nariman Point headquarters yesterday morning saw Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis state party chief Raosaheb Danve Patil city party president Ashish Shelar together to mark their 36th foundation anniversary There was a lsquopunjabi tadkarsquo band playing as women dressed in navvaari saris and dhoticlad men welcomed the BJP leadersMbPT tenants speak to Raj Purohit c as they ask him to highlight their issues to Nitin GadkariJust as the band was getting into its groove SoBorsquos elite set gatecrashed The startled lsquoTadkarsquo stopped sizzling midway as more than 150 residents stood outside the office demanding they be heardTemperatures and tempers rose simultaneously in the sweltering April heat as a mix of middleaged persons who had left their workplace and senior citizens cutting across Colaba to Wadala arrived in droves These were tenants of the Mumbai Port Trust MbPT lands and those living under the pagadi systemCM Devendra Fadnavis gheraoed by the MbPT tenants as they explain their problems to him PicsAjinkya SawantTheir multipronged demands were to press the BJP honchos to make good earlier claims to make pagadi tenants home owners They were also protesting what they claimed is misuse of the Public Properties Trust Act which they said was being used by the Mumbai Port Trust MbPT to evict them from their offices and residencesldquoThe whose who of BJP is here Raj Purohit our MLA promised we could meet Raosaheb Danve Patil and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari Many of us have received eviction notices in the Ballard Estate areardquo said Rajat Verma who owns an office at Ballard EstateMargaret da Costa from Colaba stated ldquoWe have a sword hanging over our heads as we do not know when we will be evictedrdquoOne could discern uncertainty that was breeding fear amongst those who had arrived Colabarsquos Pervez Cooper real estate agent whose office in Nazir building at Ballard Estate was sealed by the port trust in May when they took over the building last year was livid He was shouting In one hour we were on the road our livelihood taken away The port trust said that since 1986 our lease expired were they sleeping for almost 30 years One fine day they ruthlessly just threw us outReay Road resident Preeti Shenoy claims she and others got an eviction notice in December last year ldquoWe were ready to pay dues to the port trust and even paid Rs 65 lakh to the MbPT but they did not give us correct receiptsrdquo she saidViren Shah president Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association said ldquoWe support the governmentrsquos development agenda but it cannot happen at the expense of the middle class working taxpayers ldquoPatil assured them he will take up the matter with Gadkari Reassurances were followed by more mayhem as Raj Purohit blamed residents for being disorganised Purohit stated ldquoResidents need to put forth their demands clearly in a proposalrdquo He told them not to confuse issues claiming that the tenantownership issue and MbPT land issues were separate Yet for many these were linked Like Meher Sanjana a Colaba resident said ldquoMany of us fighting are both pagadi tenants as well as those affected by MbPTrdquoJust then CM Devendra Fadnavis was emerging from the office and there was high drama as residents broke the security cordon shouting ldquoCM saab aap humko beghar kar rahe hairdquo Fadnavis looked perplexed but did pacify them saying he will call a meeting Meanwhile Atul Shah BJP spokesperson and MbPT trustee shouted at them ldquoYou all have come here for tamasha No one can meet the CM like this There is a protocolrdquo The target of his ire shouted back ldquoYou have made a tamasha of us The CM is our representative we can put our issues before himrdquo ldquoI hope the message goes to Nitin Gadkari that he cannot build his dreams on our homesrdquo said Sabrina Advani of Wodehouse roadJean Correia feared renovation work worth lakhs in her home would go waste and is afraid of being thrown on the streets JD Shetty a MbPT tenant from Ballard Estate said ldquoUnauthorised slumdwellers are promised relocation and we are being thrown on the roadrdquo she finished strongly even as people dispersed vowing to fight on