India, March 21 -- The state government has allotted the additional 15,000sq ft sought by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for its state headquarters at Nariman Point. This is in addition to the 2,682sq feet it gave the political party last year, on a 30-year lease, to build a multi-storey office.

The decision has not gone down well with local residents, who had opposed a change in the city's development plan, which sacrificed a large portion of a garden, to facilitate the expansion of the BJP headquarters.

The plot on which the office and garden stands was reserved as a recreation ground (RG) in the city's development plan but encroached a long time ago. Then, in 2018, the state arbitrarily changed the reservation into commercia...