Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], June 26 : Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray on Friday hit out at the BJP over the conversion of Neville D'Souza football ground in Bandra West into a convention centre, alleging that the move will deprive youth of playgrounds and benefit contractors and builders.
In a post on X, Aaditya Thackeray wrote, "If you are wondering about why India isn't playing the FIFAWorldCup, despite the population crossing 1.4 billion people, and why countries with much smaller populations than our smallest cities are playing, stop wondering: The bjp regime in the BMC, backed by orders from the BJP state government, has just converted the Neville D'souza football ground in Bandra West into a convention centre reservation. A contractor will get his money, a builder will get location benefits and the convention centre will get a bjp leader's name."
Aaditya Thackeray said the ground had hosted multiple tournaments from grassroots to elite divisions over the past nine years. He added that despite requests from the Mumbai Football Association, the ground is now barred from use for sports.
Aaditya added, "This ground, for the past 9 years has hosted thousands of players and multiple tournaments each season. From grassroots to elite divisions, the Neville D'Souza football ground hosted it all. Now despite requests from the Mumbai Football Association, it is barred from using its own ground, and now the open space will have a contractor build a convention centre on it. Bandra West and reclamation, a high traffic density area will see more traffic, right opposite a hospital. But bjp's contractors and builders will smile with glee even as children lose their playground and Bandra adds another block of traffic."
Aaditya further noted that his earlier protests had saved two other recreation grounds in Mumbai and the city's municipal blood banks from privatisation.
He further stated, "As Mumbai Football Association, of course we will now have to pay to use other grounds, but the government is hell bent on crushing sports in Mumbai, as recreation grounds are converted arbitrarily into build up concrete spaces that have controlled and ticketed access. The core issue is, taking away playgrounds from the youth, taking away grounds from associations and then debating over the future of the game is pointless. My protest earlier saved 2 recreation grounds in Mumbai, but the bjp wants this plot to name it after one of their leaders as a convention centre. We also saved the city's municipal blood banks from privatisation- but this ground was their focus."