After south & north Indians, MNS turns heat on Gujaratis

MUMBAI: First it was the south Indians, then north Indians. It is now the turn of Gujaratis in Maharashtra to bear the brunt of another battle that would be fought on linguistic lines as both the Shiv Sena and the MNS battle for the Marathi pride. Judging by past campaigns, this one too could be just as virulent and possibly draw in the Marwaris and the Jain community in the fracas.

The catalyst has been an ill thought advertisement placed on BEST buses by a Gujarati newspaper Sandesh. The newspaper placed ads on 200 buses which said, “Mumbaini Arthik pragatima, baudhik vikasma kon?

Aapne Gujrati (Who has contributed to Mumbai’s economic progress and intellectual development? We Gujaratis).” MNS members in the BEST committee demonstrated against the advertisements and forced the Shiv Sena-BJP dominated BEST committee to remove it. On Saturday, BEST had managed to remove the advertisements from 73 such buses. The MNS through its protests has played on the brewing anger of the Marathi community against the Gujarati community.

“Putting such an ad was certainly uncalled for, how can they claim that they have been contributors to Mumbai’s intellectual progress, what have they done for the city intellectually? They are not the only one to have contributed to the city’s progress,” said Pratab Asbe, a political analyst and former journalist.

He however acknowledges that the MNS move to raise the issue of the Marathi pride is a well-thought-out strategy to embarrass the Shiv Sena. Of course the main incentive for the MNS is to hurt the Shiv Sena, as the latter was hoping to get the Gujarati vote bank for the assembly polls too.

“By raising the Gujarati issue, the MNS has forced the Sena to take a stand. If the MNS gets aggressive, then the Sena will be forced to toe a harsher line as we wouldn’t want to alienate our voters,”acknowledged a Shiv Sena senior leader.

He pointed that the MNS agitation against north Indians started as Sena President Uddhav Thackeray was trying to woo the North Indian community. However, he had to backtrack after Raj’s aggressive stance against north Indians was making many Maharashtrians cross over to the MNS.