The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has announced it will reward everyone who provide intel on illegal migrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh in Maharashtra.
While a poster located in Mumbai’s Bandra area announced a financial reward of Rs 5,555, another put up in Aurangabad offered Rs 5,000 to every informant, reported India Today. Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s cousin Raj Thackeray is the leader and founder of the party.
While Uddhav’s party Shiv Sena was a long-time ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), their relations soured recently over who Maharashtra’s new chief minister would be. Notably, the Sena-led Maharashtra government announced 5 percent reservation for Muslims in educational institutes on February 28.
Meanwhile, MNS, which until recently had criticised the BJP, has unveiled a saffron flag and softened its stance. This move could also indicate that they are looking at a shift towards a more unabashed display of their Hindutva ideology even as Sena is trying to adopt a more secular approach.
Raj Thackeray’s party recently offered support to the Centre in evicting illegal immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Their announcement comes in the backdrop of nationwide unrest concerning the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC), which when clubbed, are suspected to be a nefarious design to disenfranchise the Muslims in India.
The CAA, which is a law that expedites the process of granting citizenship to persecuted minorities in three neighbouring countries — Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan — categorically leaves out Muslims. The NRC, on the other hand, is an exercise believed to aim at weeding out illegal immigrants from the country.
