Maharashtra caste violence: Left or right, who stoked violence?

MUMBAI: A blame game has started in Maharashtra over who triggered the caste clashes, even as chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday announced a judicial probe into the violence that kept the state on the edge.

State government officials and BJP leaders said the incidents were orchestrated by Left groups — some of them ET spoke to named Jignesh Mewani, the newly elected Gujarat MLA, for instigating Dalits.

Others like Prakash Ambedkar of the Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh (BMM) accused right-wing groups, especially the Hindu Ekta Aghadi and Shivraj Pratishthan, headed by Milind Ekbote and Sambhaji Bhide, respectively. Bhide has a sizeable following in Western Maharashtra and is considered to be close to the RSS. Ekbote was a BJP corporator, but had left the party and joined the Shiv Sena.


Ambedkar, who is a grandson of Babasaheb Ambedkar, said the violence was engineered by Shivraj Pratishthan activists, who provoked villagers to attack Dalits.

Ekbote’s men were also involved in stone throwing, he alleged, and accused Ekbote and Bhide of being involved in a conspiracy to target Dalits returning form the bicentenary celebrations of the historic Bhima-Koregaon battle. Ruling out any conflict between Marathas and Dalits and to prove that, he said Maratha outfit Sambhaji Brigade had supported his press conference where he called for a Maharashtra Bandh on Wednesday.

The ruling BJP termed these claims as “fictitious”. “The government has to investigate who are the real conspirators who are planning to destabilise Maharashtra and they should be exposed,” said Madhav Bhandari, a BJP spokesperson in Maharashtra. State government officials and BJP leaders said Mewani, the newly elected Gujarat MLA, was camping in Maharashtra for the past three days and that he was the one who incited violence.