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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 8:56:24 pm

Raj snarls at Mumbai traffic chaos

Mumbai: Coming down heavily on Mumbai’s traffic woes, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) President Raj Thackeray said India may boast of a 7.8 pc GDP growth, but what use is a booming economy if citizens struggle to even walk safely on the roads, here on Monday. In scathing inaugural address of the MNS Vahatuk Sena conference in Navi Mumbai, Raj took in a bird’ eye-view and took potshots at the city, state and Centre on urban traffic problems, vanishing footpaths, incessant number of vehicles...

Raj snarls at Mumbai traffic chaos

Mumbai: Coming down heavily on Mumbai’s traffic woes, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) President Raj Thackeray said India may boast of a 7.8 pc GDP growth, but what use is a booming economy if citizens struggle to even walk safely on the roads, here on Monday. In scathing inaugural address of the MNS Vahatuk Sena conference in Navi Mumbai, Raj took in a bird’ eye-view and took potshots at the city, state and Centre on urban traffic problems, vanishing footpaths, incessant number of vehicles spilling onto the already clogged roads, lack of civic or traffic disciplines and unplanned development activities in cities. “Norms stipulate that road should account for 15pc of a city’s total area. But, for example, in Pune, roads comprise barely 7pc of the landscape,” Raj pointed out, slamming the local and state governments for doling out FSI indiscriminately and permitting buildings to mushroom without matching infrastructure. “We have development plans that cater to builders’ interests, but there is no town planning… This is why we are suffering… Should be lick the GDP growth?” he asked sarcastically. Raj claimed that we are busy building bridges and flyovers in the name of development but without adequately assessing the actual requirements, roads are built to last only two years after which they need repairs, natural lakes are being filled up and replaced with skyscrapers, damaging the cityscape, and leading to water shortages. Dwelling on traffic discipline and the government’s apparent inability to enforce it, the MNS chief point out how trucks and tempos routinely ply on the extreme right (fast) lane flouting rules mandating them to be on the left (slow) lanes, how vehicles are randomly parked at street corners obstructing traffic and posing accident hazards, and how intrepid two-wheeler riders believe “that traffic signals are meant for four-wheelers alone”. “When there are traffic signals everywhere, there are also traffic cops… What is the need for this? Why can’t we learn from developed countries where everybody scrupulously adheres to road discipline... I have instructed all my drivers including the police escort vehicles to stick to traffic discipline, come what may,” Raj declared. He shuddered at the mere thought that if Mumbai’s local train networks ever collapsed – there have been many instances in the past – lakhs of commuters would be forced to take out their own vehicles and the city could be completely paralysed. “I have already written to the CM, Deputy CMs and the BMC authorities on the need to curb illegal parking on roads/pavements, demarcate parking zones with red-blue or yellow-black stripes, and make the people aware of it. But nothing has been done on this,” he rued. “Citizens fail to follow traffic rules, the government fails to enforce them, new vehicles are coming onto the roads daily but when there are traffic jams, fingers are pointed at the traffic police,” said Raj. Give me power Ending on a stark political track, Thackeray said creating an orderly civic structure was hardly “rocket science”. “I am eagerly waiting to see the day when the people of Maharashtra will hand over the reins of power to me. I will bring in true order to the state. Enforcing discipline is not a rocket science, it just requires political will,” Raj concluded in a dare.

The Organisation Man

Writer: Abhijit Mulye
Abhijit Mulye
Nov 12, 2024
2 min read

As the state president of the NCP (SP) Jayant Rajaram Patil has shown that he is the organization man of the party. Highly educated from a foreign university, he sports a rich heritage of a vast number of cooperative institutions founded and built by his father Rajarambapu Patil and has a distinction of being the youngest finance minister of the state.


Born on February 16, 1962, in Sangli, Maharashtra, he was named ‘Jayant,’ meaning victorious, as he was born shortly after his father’s first electoral victory in the state assembly election. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI) in Mumbai and then pursued a Master’s degree from the New Jersey Institute of Technology in the United States. However, the sudden demise of his father in 1984 brought him back to India, where he took over his father’s cooperative organizations and began his journey in social work.


Jayant Patil’s political career began in earnest in 1990 when he contested the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections from the Walwa constituency on an Indian National Congress ticket. He won the election and has since represented the Islampur (formerly Walwa) constituency for over three decades. His political acumen and dedication to public service quickly earned him a reputation as a capable leader.


He was from among the team young politicians handpicked by Sharad Pawar while forming the Nationalist Congress Party in 1999. He became the Finance Minister after winning assembly election in 1999 and served till 2008. He then took on the role of Home Minister from 2008 to 2009, followed by a stint as the Rural Development Minister from 2009 to 2014. In the Uddhav Thackeray-led government, he was Water Resources minister between 2019 and 2022.


Jayant Patil is known for his organizational skills, strategic thinking and ability to navigate complex political landscapes. He was made the state party chief in 2014 when the NCP was at its lowest. He implemented novel initiatives like Rashtravadi Parivar Samvad Yatra to instil confidence among the party cadres, recruited new leadership to replace those who had left the party and brought in new technology-led initiatives to knit the party organization till the booth-level. It was due to his efforts that the party’s position was much better and the party could think of forming government in the state in 2019.


Over the long political journey spanning over three decades, Jayant Patil has acquired skills to carve out his own niche among the other political stalwarts in his home district of Sangli. He also has cordial relations with leaders from opposition camps. He is a man of few words and a soft spoken gentle man. These qualities will be tested in this election.

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