Chavan prays at Siddhivinayak for an auspicious start

Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan today offered prayers at the famous Siddhivinayak temple here for the success of the Congress-NCP government sworn in yesterday for a third successive five-year term by Governor S C Jamir.

After performing ''aarti'' and ''pooja'' at the temple, he told newsmen that he invoked the divine blessings of Siddhivinayak to enable him and his ministers to fulfill the expectations of people.

Mr Chavan, accompanied by Mumbai Regional Congress Committee president Kripa Shankar Singh and other collegues, also paid floral tributes to the 105 martyrs, who laid down their lives during the ''Samyukta Maharashtra'' struggle about 50 years ago, at Hutatama Chowk here before presiding over the first Cabinet meeting of his new ministry.

In 1955 a popular outcry arose, when the state organisations committee proposed that the erstwhile Bombay State either be a bi-lingual Marathi-Gujarati unit with Bombay as its capital or that Bombay be made an Union Territory, separate from the linguistic states of Gujarat and Maharashtra. People were stunned over the prospect of a Marathi state without Bombay and different sections of the society including socialists, communists, trade unions, Marathi press and men of letters came together in demand for a united Maharashtra.

Following the struggle, the Centre finally relented and made Mumbai into the capital of the new state of Maharashtra on May one, 1960.

-- (UNI) -- 08BY1.xml

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