MNS chief Raj Thackeray criticised the Nashik Municipal Corporation's (NMC) proposal to cut 1,800 trees to develop Sadhugram in the Tapovan area for the Kumbh Mela. "The government shouldn't give hollow assurances that trees would be planted somewhere else...that never happens," he said. He claimed that the government will later donate the levelled land to their "favourite industrialists".