M A I N   N E W S

Raj justifies stir against north Indians

Mumbai, February 24
Defending his stand on the agitation against north Indian migrants, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena Chief Raj Thackeray today said the stir was not “unconstitutional”.

Responding to the comments of Sudheendra Kulkarni, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s aide in then PMO published in a Marathi newspaper here, Thackeray said leave aside the rest of the country, in Maharashtra itself, every political party has indulged in political violence and political killings at some time or the other “Despite the entire media, especially Hindi and English media unitedly assaulting me, my party and Maharashtra, not a single worker of mine has hurt anyone in media either verbally or physically,” Raj said. Leaders from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and north Indian journalists have decided to tag what we are doing as “goondagiri”, Raj said.

They (leaders and media) are doing this as their financial, cultural and political interests are intertwined, the 39-year-old estranged nephew of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray said.

Leaders involved in political killings come to Maharashtra and teach me non-violence and journalists cosy up to them and dub me and my workers as goondas, Raj said.

“As a former Communist, you must be aware of the millions of killings that took place in Communist agitations,” Raj told Kulkarni in his letter published in the same newspaper.

Without naming his cousin and Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray, Raj said “in recent times, agitations are organised as part of a compromise between ruling and Opposition parties and large morchas are organised. Afterwards, the leaders and their associates go home and sleep.”

“(BJP leader) L.K. Advani has criticised me saying my agitation was unconstitutional but was he not aware of the same when he organised his rath yatra (on Ram temple issue).”

“There was a lot of violence and people were killed but he still proceeded with that agitation,” Raj said. “I have not heard of Advani raising the issue with Narendra Modi after the Godhra killings.”

“We participate in Gujarati ‘garba’ and Bengali navratra. When south Indians perform Ayappa puja, some Maharashtrians offer special prayers,” Raj said. But ‘chhat puja’ is not celebrated as a religious festival in Mumbai. It has become the arena of Bihari leaders and ‘goondas’ to show their strength to the state, he said.

“When people from other states organise Ganesh festival, do they invite (Maharashtra leaders) Sharad Pawar, Gopinath Munde, Balasaheb (Thackeray), Vilasrao Deshmukh or Sushilkumar Shinde?” he asked.

“I have a clipping in my possession where Amitabh Bachchan says that although he has lived in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai his identity is that of a ‘chhora Ganga kinarewala’ (a native of Uttar Pradesh),” he said. “We are not against the common man or the migrant workers from UP and Bihar. If somebody changes according to the house of the host (Maharashtra), he is welcome, but if somebody wants to change the host’s home by dadagiri (force), we will never tolerate it,” Raj asserted. — PTI

25,000 north Indian workers leave Pune

Pune, February 24
Fear continues to grip hundreds of north Indian labourers here, who are availing of every possible mode of transport to reach their hometowns, days after dust seemed to settle down on the violence sparked by the MNS campaign against migrants.

Official estimates put the figure of workers who left Pune over the last fortnight in the wake of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s (MNS) anti-North Indian rhetoric at over 25,000, adversely affecting many projects of the construction industry which employs the skilled and unskilled labour from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

To make things worse, the city was agog with rumours that February 25 would see another spate of violence in Maharashtra, triggering a fresh wave of migrant labourers rushing to catch North-bound trains and buses.

The vitiated atmosphere got the authorities concerned as district guardian minister Ajit Pawar and collector Prabhakar Deshmukh held meetings of various people’s representatives to scotch the rumours and to reassure the jittery workforce. — PTI