Mumbai: Groom in two minds on whether to skip his wedding, does next best thing on ‘Save Aarey’ campaign

Mumbai, Aug 29: A man was in dilemma on whether to skip a 'Save Aarey' public rally on Sunday or attend his own wedding during the day.

Mandeep Singh Bhamra and his bride Jaspreet Kaur decided to take it to the next level. They held a demonstration at their wedding where they displayed pro-green and 'Save Aarey' posters.

The guest list which included fellow activists also held up similar posters. In lighter vein the friends told the couple that they should go to Aarey for their honeymoon. The groom said that since he had attended the demonstrations, he did not want to miss out on this important activity on Sunday.

A report in the Times of India said that another activist, Archana Patel said that it was a typical Punjabi wedding at a Gurdwara. What made it extraordinary was that he did not want to forget the citizens' campaign for Aarey.

After coming to power last month, the Eknath Shinde government had directed the state administration to submit a proposal on building the car shed in Aarey Colony, instead of Kanjurmarg which was chosen by the previous Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) dispensation.

In 2014, the Metro-3 car shed was first proposed at Aarey by the then chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, which was challenged by local NGO Vanshakti in the Bombay High Court, with a plea to prevent cutting of trees in the area.

Devendra Fadnavis, who succeeded Chavan, went ahead with the same site. But green activists had vehemently opposed the cutting of trees in Aarey for the car shed, a PTI report said.

After the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress alliance came to power in 2019, the then CM Thackeray had reversed the decision, shifting the Metro-3 car shed to a site in the Kanjurmarg eastern suburb, but it was embroiled in a legal dispute.