Elphinstone Road station in Mumbai renamed as Prabhadevi

Mumbai: Within days of the Central Railway (CR) renaming the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus as the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, the Western Railway (WR) today rechristened the Elphinstone Road station as Prabhadevi. The WR has issued a notification to this effect but it will take almost a week to complete all the formalities of changing the name. The code initials of the renamed station would be- PBHD. It was Shiv Sena which had first made the demand to rename some suburban stations in Mumbai arguing they carried “colonial” names. In December last year, the Maharashtra legislature had approved a Bill to rename the Elphinstone Road station, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) and the Mumbai airport. Last week, Mumbai’s iconic railway station, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus was rechristened with addition of an honorific ‘Maharaj’ after ‘Shivaji’ in its old name. The British-era landmark, which was Victoria Terminus before it was named after the Maratha warrior king a couple of decades back, is now known as “Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, Mumbai.” Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant has demanded that Currey Road station be named 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.