Mumbai fire department certificate refers to AJL building as ‘Cong Bhavan’

Indian Express: Mumbai: Monday, 14 December 2015.

An 11-storey building coming up on a plot in Mumbai, which the government had allotted to Associated Journals in 1983 for a Nehru memorial, has been referred to as ‘Congress Bhavan’ in a fire department certification for the building, it has emerged.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra Congress leaders defended the construction of the building by contending that the building’s final purpose was not yet known.

The plot, along the Western Express Highway in Bandra, was originally allotted to Associated Journals which used to publish National Herald, a newspaper started by Jawaharlal Nehru for the construction of a printing press, a Nehru memorial research centre and library. The plot was vacant for nearly three decades. Construction of an 11-storey building is now under way following granting of building permissions from the BMC.

Information accessed by the RTI activists now shows that the BMC’s Fire Brigade, while granting a no-objection certificate for the construction work, called the building a “highrise commercial building (Congress Bhavan)”.

The BMC had permitted an 11-storey office building on the plot. In February 2013, while granting the fire department’s NOC, the Fire Brigade’s communication referred to the construction as Congress Bhavan.

The Indian Express had earlier reported that a watchman at the construction site also called the under-construction building a ‘party office’.

Asked if a Congress party office was proposed on the property, Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said the BJP was misleading people by claiming that a Nehru memorial and library would not be constructed. “Can we run a Nehru library on open land? This is the BJP’s strategy for mudslinging in order to deflect attention from the popular discontent,” Sawant said.