Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Wednesday that he will write to the Prime Minister requesting him to replace Bombay with Mumbai in the name of the city's Indian Institute of Technology.
This comes after a row over Union Minister for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh's remarks during his speech at IIT Bombay on Monday. Singh had remarked on a lighter note, “As far as IIT Bombay is concerned, thank god it still has this name. You have not changed it to Mumbai. So that's another compliment to you. And also true for Madras. It remains IIT Madras.”
Singh also lauded IIT Bombay, which was set up in 1958, saying the institute had been a “very consistent” partner of the Department of Science and Technology.
Opposition parties, particularly the Raj Thackeray-led MNS, subsequently raked up a controversy, saying that BJP leaders never let go of any opportunity to insult Marathi, Mumbai and Maharashtra.
In response, CM Fadnavis said that BJP leader Rambhau Naik was instrumental in getting Bombay renamed as Mumbai.
“We are working to remove the remaining references to Bombay in Mumbai. I personally will write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Human Resource Ministry to replace the name of IIT Bombay with IIT Mumbai. Some people raise the issue for the sake of controversy and forget their children's school names. They never make a complaint and write to change the name of their children's schools,” Fadnavis said.
Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray's children studied in Bombay Scottish and Don Bosco English medium schools in Mumbai.
Raj Thackeray alleged that the BJP-led Union government planned to bring Mumbai under the control of the Centre like they planned with Chandigarh. “With the Mumbai Metropolitan region expansion plan, they are connecting it to Gujarat so that projects can be taken away easily from Maharashtra to Gujarat. Singh's statement has brought out a hidden truth about what the BJP and its leaders think about Mumbai and Maharashtra. Singh is from Jammu, but still he stirred this controversy just to get pats from two Gujarati leaders,” the MNS leader said.
Bombay was officially renamed Mumbai in 1995 by the state government to honour the local goddess Mumbadevi after whom the city is named, and to shed the remnants of British colonial rule.