Raj Thackeray’s fresh salvo amid Marathi row: ‘We are accused of harassing Biharis, but…’

MNS chief Raj Thackeray

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray on Saturday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), accusing it of having a double standard over protecting regional identity. Thackeray pointed to Gujarat as an example to support his argument.

The MNS chief, while addressing a gathering in Maharashtra’s Raigad, stated that although Biharis were expelled from Gujarat twice, the leaders of those anti-Bihari agitations were eventually welcomed by the BJP and given MLA posts.

“We are accused of harassing outsiders by raising the issue of Hindi-Marathi, but Biharis were driven out of Gujarat twice. The people who protested against Biharis there, beat them, and drove them out of the state were taken into the BJP party and made MLAs. They keep their state organised, but in other states, if anyone talks about protecting their language and culture, then they are defamed,” Thackeray was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

He further attacked the Devendra Fadnavis-led Maharashtra government over organising a Gujarati Sahitya Sammelan at government expense amid the language row. “The Maharashtra government is going to organise a Gujarati Sahitya Sammelan at government expense. The government has done this deliberately so that we react to it, and the government gets a chance to do politics. We will not be influenced by the government. But when we feel that the government is taking steps to destroy Maharashtra, then we will raise our voice. All of you stay alert and keep a close watch on what the government is doing,” Thackeray said.

Thackeray’s remarks came as Maharashtra recently witnessed a growing Hindi-Marathi language controversy, sparked by two government resolutions on teaching of Hindi from Class I and enforcing the three-language formula -- moves strongly opposed by parties like Shiv Sena (UBT) and the MNS in the Mumbai region.

Amid protests over the matter, including from Raj and Uddhav Thackeray, the Maharashtra government withdrew the resolutions.

On July 5, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray and MNS chief Raj Thackeray came together on a shared platform in Mumbai – after a gap of two decades -- to defend the Marathi language, vowing to resist the “imposition” of Hindi in Maharashtra following the state government’s withdrawal of the GRs.

In the last few months, several incidents involving verbal and physical assaults, vandalism, and public intimidation by the MNS workers came to the fore from various parts of the state – most of them took place after people refused to or did not speak/learn Marathi.