The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Monday decided to consider a notice of motion raised by Congress corporator Javed Juneja opposing the naming of a junction at Kala Ghoda after former Israeli Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres. Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar, while accepting the notice of motion, however, declined to allow discussion on it. Juneja questioned the mayor’s decision to not hold discussion on the proposal. “The NM (notice of motion) came for discussion six months after it was moved as previously all the meetings called for NMs were cancelled. Now, rather than discussing the proposal, the mayor decided to defer the decision. This has never been the case before. In the same meeting, another proposal moved by BJP corporator Harshita Narvekar of naming a playground was accepted by the house and cleared. But my NM was deferred,” Juneja told The Indian Express. On December 18, 2020, a proposal of naming a junction of V B Gandhi Marg and Saibaba Lane as Shimon Peres Chowk was cleared in a general body meeting. Following this, in February 2021, a board was put up naming the junction after Peres. This created controversy with Congress and Samajwadi Party (SP) corporators opposing the move and alleging that the naming was done by violating all norms and without following the procedure laid down in the BMC policy. Congress’s Juneja and SP’s Rais Shaikh had moved NMs in February 2021 seeking reopening of the proposal of naming the junction so that Peres’s name could be cancelled. “What contribution does a foreigner have in Mumbai or Maharashtra’s history? Peres had no direct connection with the city then why should a junction be named after him?” said Juneja. Peres served as a prime minister twice and died at the age of 93 in 2016.
