Marathi vs Hindi row a 'trap' by Fadnavis to unite Hindi voters for BMC polls: Congress

Mumbai: The ongoing heat over the Marathi-versus-Hindi issue is a "trap" laid by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to help the Bharatiya Janata Party return to power in the Mumbai civic polls, a senior Congress leader has claimed.

Vijay Wadettiwar, a senior Congress leader, on Saturday hinted that political parties like the Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray Sena had fallen into the "trap" after they protested the state government's move to introduce Hindi as a subject for primary students.

"We are not against Hindi, we have also learned Hindi from the fifth standard, though we agree it should not be introduced from the first standard. However, the politics behind this (introducing Hindi) is different. Today the BJP has managed to create a big voter base of Hindi-speaking people in Mumbai," said Wadettiwar.


He added, "The Marathi population is not more than 35 to 40 per cent and if you remove the minority population, then we have around 42 per cent Hindi-speaking population. By bringing out this issue, the Hindi-speaking people have been brought together by Fadnavis. He has been successful in it."

Without naming the UBT Sena or Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), Wadettiwar said these parties would struggle to gain much in the Mumbai civic polls on the language issue compared to the BJP.