The Central Railway (CR) renamed the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus a few days back adding the honouring title of Maharaj with the name of Shivaji. Following the suit, the Western Railways (WR) also renamed the Elphinstone Road station, on the name of a local deity as Prabhadevi.
The station was originally named after Lord Elphinstone, who was the Governor of Bombay from 1853 to 1860.
Responding to the renaming of the station Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant in his statement to the PTI said that, it was originally the demand of Shive Sena to rename the suburban station’s colonial names with the names of the local deities and leaders. He added that the Sena is happy that finally their demands are being met, but he also said that this is just the beginning and the demands will continue till all the colonial names are replaced.
Shiv Sena demand of renaming the stations was supported by all the major parties of Maharashtra and the bill was unanimously passed in the Maharashtra Assembly last year.
Shiv Sena had demanded the rechristening of Currey Road station as Lalbaugh, Sandhurst Road station as Dongri, Reay Road as Ghodapdeo, Cotton Green as Kalachowki, Mumbai Central as Nana Chowk, Grant Road as Gaondevi, etc. Maharashtra legislature had approved a Bill to rename the Elphinstone Road station as Prabhadevi and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) as the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, last year and the central government also approved of it in May this year.
The chief public relations officer of the WR, Ravinder Bhaskar said that the notification regarding the renaming of the stations was issued and it would take almost a week to make the necessary changes, including the changes to be done in the database.