By IANS
Nagpur : Bihar Governor R.S. Gavai Monday disapproved of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) agitation against north Indians in Mumbai and elsewhere in Maharashtra and questioned party leader Raj Thackeray’s claim to safeguard the interests of the Marathi people.
“Thackeray doesn’t seem to have thought about the hostility that Maharashtrians in other states might have to face as a reaction to his hate campaign (against north Indian migrants)… What type of love (for the Marathi people) is this?” Gavai told reporters here.
“In any case such linguistic agitations and hate campaigns are dangerous for the national integrity and will only widen the fissures between various communities in society,” the Bihar governor said, adding that he had spoken to Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and also written to him about this.
The former president of the Republican Party of India (G) and a Maharashtrian from Amravati district of the state’s Vidarbha region, Gavai was booed by some opposition members in the Bihar assembly during his address to its joint session last week.
Gavai, however, said the disturbances, which only a few members created, were directed against the Bihar government’s policies and programmes that he referred to in his address and not against the MNS agitation.
The Bihar governor had, however, told the media in Patna after his legislature address that some members did question his presence there being a Maharashtrian and that they referred to Thackeray.