Maharashtra’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena on Tuesday engaged in a no-holds-barred war of words over an attack on a toll-post along the Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway (Samruddhi Mahamarg), allegedly by MNS men.
The trigger for the verbal and social media war was the vandalism of a toll-booth on the Shirdi-Nashik sector of the expressway late on Saturday night.
Earlier on July 22 evening, MNS leader Amit Thackeray – son of party President Raj Thackeray – was ostensibly delayed and harassed at the toll-booth before he was allowed to pass.
A few hours later, a group of alleged MNS activists stormed the toll-post, chased the staffers and vandalised it, with videos of the incident going viral. At least 7 have been arrested so far by the police.
Taking strong note of the incident, the BJP posted a video and chided the MNS scion: “Amit Thackeray, breaking toll-booths is not politics. Occasionally, learn and teach to be constructive”.
Stung by this, the MNS hit back at the BJP with strong barbs, with the party spokesperson Sandeep Deshpande saying: “Those who break other peoples’ parties all their lives, what can they teach us about constructing? They should build their own party before destroying others’ parties”.
Amit Thackeray too jumped in the fray and said: “If the ruling party was not so busy in breaking up other parties, then the Irshalwadi (Raigad hillslide) tragedy could have been avoided and the lives of those innocent people would have been saved”.
The MNS tweeted that this statement of Amit Thackeray has turned out to be “so shocking that the biggest party on earth is trying to crush this 31-year-old youth”.
In a no-holds barred attack, the MNS gunned for BJP: “If there is so much concern about the law and order, why is the rate of disappearance of girls in Maharashtra increasing? Why women are being attacked in broad daylight? When our people are killed in bus accidents and their funerals are going on, how come ministers are being sworn-in by splitting parties.”
The references were to Nationalist Congress Party President Sharad Pawar’s recent statement on the large number of women/girls who have disappeared in the state in the past one year, the brutal attacks on women in Mumbai, Thane, Palghar incidents, and the ghastly bus accident of July 1 on the Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway on July 1.
The MNS added that “when people are dying like ants or insects, the autocratic ruling party is only busy with splitting political parties”.
The latest slugfest indicates that the relations between the BJP-MNS have again nosedived, ostensibly over the latter’s reluctance to forge an alliance with the ruling triad.
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