By IANS
Mumbai : Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray’s tirade against north Indians in the commercial capital of India has evoked mixed reaction from people here amid general disapproval of violence.
MNS activists Sunday allegedly went on the rampage during a Samajwadi Party (SP) rally at Shivaji Park in Dadar, central Mumbai, which is considered to be the turf of the Shiv Sena. Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan’s residence at Juhu ‘Prateeksha’ was also attacked.
“Raj Thackeray’s broadside against Hindi superstar Amitabh Bachchan and Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Amar Singh is apparently a part of his strategy to counter the recent Shiv Sena bid to woo north Indians in Mumbai,” theatre actor Ajit Kelkar said.
“The effort clearly is to exploit the Marathi feelings ruffled because of a north Indians’ rally that Shiv Sena organized last week in Dadar but it is doubtful whether the gimmick will pay him dividends in the form of votes,” Kelkar told IANS.
At another forum, Raj launched a diatribe against the Bachchan family for being more concerned about Uttar Pradesh than Maharashtra. He questioned the decision to construct a girls school in Uttar Pradesh named after Amitabh’s daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai.
Last week, he lashed out at the north Indians on different issues, including performing Chhat Puja, and demanded that they must only celebrate Maharashtrian festivals.
Kelkar said while Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena is eying the growing north-Indian votes, as the party’s sure-shot Marathi vote-bank would not suffice to regain power in Maharashtra, his estranged cousin is trying to plunder the Marathi constituency after breaking away from the parent party.
“But people are disillusioned as they see that the Shiv Sena is no different from the Congress and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena is no different from Shiv Sena,” Kelkar remarked referring to the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government’s inaction vis-à-vis endless influx in Mumbai and the sorry state of civic amenities under the Shiv Sena ruled municipal corporation.
Disapproving of the hooliganism in Dadar, Shripad Hambarde, a software consultant in Thane however said the Maharashtrians’ angst at the “menace” caused by hordes streaming daily into the state capital and the “brashness” of the “settlers from outside” had to find an expression some day or the other.
“They have been dominating the trade and business. They constitute a majority among taxi drivers and hawkers and now they are usurping the means of livelihood even from the traditional fishermen here,” Hambarde said, referring to north Indians in Mumbai.
Hastening to add that he disapproved of hooliganism and violence as means of agitation, Hambarde said the idealists singing virtues of cosmopolitanism must see ground realities and ponder why such antics strike resonance even among the silent local majority.
Sonali Kothale, a Thane housewife said Raj Thackeray, who had earlier talked a maturely reassuring language about non-Maharashtrians in Mumbai and disapproved of Shiv Sena’s intemperate actions like damaging the cricket pitch before India-Pakistan matches is now hitting out at north Indians just because Shiv Sena is wooing them.
“But if such stunts sound alarm bells in the right quarters to remedy the situation (caused by the growing influx into India’s commercial capital) before it goes out of hand, I would welcome it as a potent political action in the given circumstances,” she said.
Insisting that Amar Singh’s reported talk of wielding sticks was as condemnable as Raj Thackeray’s talk of wielding swords and supporting Railway Minister Lalu Prasad’s statement that all Indians have an equal right to live in any part of the country, Kothale however said one would also expect a word of deference for the original inhabitants of the state from these mature political leaders.
“Why did they not also talk of allowing some breathing space for the mild-mannered Maharashtrian majority groaning under the weight of non-stop influx in Mumbai? Do they not realise that there are limits to everything?” she asked.