PM Modi's Mumbai visit: Not even MP written before my name on invitation, says Arvind Sawant

South Mumbai Member of Parliament and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Arvind Sawant. Pic/Official Twitter handle @AGSawant

South Mumbai Member of Parliament and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Arvind Sawant on Thursday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Mumbai was being organised for publicity ahead of the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections.

He said these projects to be inaugurated by the Prime Minister were completed during the tenure of former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. Today, it is being inaugurated only keeping in mind BMC elections, he said.

Sawant also expressed strong displeasure for the invitation for the Prime Minister's event at Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). He said the invitation card that he received for the event did not even mention his name.

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He slammed the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and said that the event is held by the state government and Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and not by the BJP.

Talking to reporters, Sawant said, unfortunately, PM Modi is not often seen acting as the Prime Minister of the country. "Earlier, the Maharashtra government officials had come to invite me to PM Modi's event. The invitation had names of five other MPs but not mine. Even the envelope was blank, with no name on it."

PM Modi will inaugurate and lay the foundation stone of projects worth around Rs 38,800 crores in Mumbai. He will inaugurate two lines of the Mumbai Metro.

To provide seamless urban mobility, he will also dedicate to the nation Mumbai Metro Rail Lines 2A and 7, worth around Rs 12,600 crore. The metro line 2A connecting Dahisar E and DN Nagar (yellow line) is around 18.6 km long, while metro line 7 connecting Andheri E - Dahisar E (red line) is around 16.5 km long. The Prime Minister had laid the foundation stone of these lines in 2015.