On Friday, Amruta Fadnavis, wife of former Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis hit out at the MVA government for rising unorganized traffic in Mumbai. While speaking to the reporters she said that 3 per cent of divorces in Mumbai take place due to problems arising out of delays due to potholes and traffic while commuting.
She added that people in Mumbai are not able to reach home in time and are further not able to spend time with their families due to the heavy traffic, claiming that this even leads to divorces. “Do you know how many divorces are happening due to the traffic jam? 3 per cent of divorces happen because people cannot give time to their families. When will you address these issues?”, she said.
Further urging people to not play politics on her statement, she said that people should consider her as a common woman, a common citizen and not the wife of Devendra Fadnavis. “Whenever I say anything, I say it as a common citizen. Whenever I go out, I see several issues including potholes and traffic which concern us. I go out as a common woman”, she added.
#WATCH: BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis’ wife Amruta Fadnavis says, “I’m saying this as common citizen. Once I go out I see several issues incl potholes,traffic. Due to traffic,people are unable to give time to their families & 3% divorces in Mumbai are happening due to it.” (04.02) pic.twitter.com/p5Nne5gaV5
— ANI (@ANI) February 5, 2022
Fadnavis also slammed the MVA government and said that it was functioning as a monopoly government that was just busy collecting ‘vasoolis’.
Meanwhile, Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar has criticized Amruta Fadnavis for her comment and said, “There can be many reasons for divorce but this is for the first time I have heard”. She said that Amruta Fadnavis has been making some strange statements for the last few months, alleging that BJP was working towards discrediting Mumbai. Kishori Pednekar said that they never claimed that the roads in Mumbai are smooth, but potholes are filled up as soon as they received information about them. However, the statement that people are getting divorced for traffic congestion on the roads is wrong, the mayor added.
According to the family court, the city of Mumbai reports average of 22 divorce petitions per day from over the past decade. From year 2011 to 2020, the numer of divorces filed in Mumbai are on an average between 7500 to 8300. In year 2011, the figure stood at 7515, while in year 2019 it increased to 7727. However, last year, the number was reduced to 5059 due to the COVID lockdown.
Reports mention that ‘divorce petitions in Mumbai are being filed more by men than women and the core issues between spouses are the rising standards of expectations from each other, lack of time for the partner and lack of communication between the couple’.
It is pertinent to note that the decade from 2011 to 2020 has seen 109% rise in vehicles in Mumbai. According to the reports, these vehicles hitting the streets have increased problems like severe traffic congestion, dearth of parking slots and peaked pollution. While the Mumbai Metro can solve the road traffic issue to a great extent, the Uddhav Thackeray government is actively blocking the project due to political reasons.
