Sena and RSS lock horns over north Indian issue

MUMBAI - The Shiv Sena has come out in the open against the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) over the issue of north Indians and tension between the two political outfits grew when it asked the RSS to stay out of Mumbai’s affairs.

Sena’s President Uddhav Thackeray has written an article in ‘Saamna’ warning the RSS to stay out from issues related to Mumbai.

Uddhav has written, “RSS should not comment on any issue that is to do with Mumbai. This city belongs to Maharashtra and Marathi manoos. If RSS wants to talk of protecting Hindi they should do it in South India first.”

They should act to stop North Indians being targeted in Assam, claimed the piece written by Uddhav Thackeray.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had come out in support of north Indians on Sunday asking the sangh workers to protect the community from attacks.

Bhagwat had said, “Whole of India is for all Indians and all Indians can earn livelihood anywhere in India. Language, caste, sub-castes, groups, tribes can be different, but all are sons of India.”

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has however stood by its parent body, the RSS on the issue of migrant politics in Mumbai.

BJP President Nitin Gadkari said, “BJP recognizes importance of linguistic, regional identities, the BJP believes these identities must converge into a national identity.”

BJP Vice-President Shanta Kumar said, “Just for politics we don’t divide the country. We should be careful about this. The RSS has said the absolutely correct thing.”

Meanwhile, RSS leader Ram Madhav said in Jabalpur that sangh workers would protect North Indians in Maharashtra.

Madhav said, “Sangh workers would protect North Indians. Mohan Bhagwat has issued directions to sangh workers to protect the North Indians in Maharashtra.”

Both the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) have been blaming the north Indians of flooding in Mumbai and taking away the jobs meant for the Marathis.

MNS in particular has been violent on the issue and its supporters have attacked north Indians putting up in Mumbai and other cities of Maharashtra accusing them to taking away the jobs meant for the local Marathi people.

The current storm on the issue had begun with Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan declaring the new rule on Wednesday (January 20) that a person applying for taxi-permit must have fifteen years of domicile of Maharashtra.

However, after much criticism Chavan backed out from his earlier statement on Thursday (January 21) saying that in order to get a taxi permit, taxi drivers need to speak Marathi, Hindi or Gujarati. (ANI)