Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray on Sunday reiterated that he would pack off the Bihari immigrants from the state if the Bihar government pressed kidnapping charges against the Mumbai Police for arresting the desecrator of Amar Jawan Jyoti from Bihar.
Criticising home minister R.R. Patil for his inaction despite proof that “most criminals in the city and state were from Bihar”, and that they fled there after committing the crimes, Mr Thackeray said it was time that the government woke up to the threat and took steps to curb the menace. He also accused Hindi news channels of spreading hatred against him by misinterpreting and twisting his words. While addressing MNS office-bearers at Rangsharda in Bandra, Mr Thackeray said that everyday, 48 trains carrying people from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand arrive in Mumbai, Thane and Pune, but the home ministry has no record of people who enter the state. “Our state should adopt the policy like Kerala where every immigrant from any state has to register himself with the police,” said Mr Thackeray.
Further, targeting the Hindi media channels who he said were pandering to the people from the north for their TRPs, Mr Thackeray said that if they continued to misinterpret his words, he would be forced to pack them off as well. He claimed that the Hindi media excluded the “if” part of his statement and only showed the “then” part of it.
On the other hand, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar slammed the Maharashtra government for not taking any action against Mr Thackeray and allowing him to apparently speak on its behalf and questioning the Bihar government for protesting Qadir’s arrest.
Defending the Bihar DGP’s letter, Mr Kumar cited the Union home ministry’s circular which states that the police or investigating agency of any state was duty-bound to inform the local police and seek its cooperation in the arrest of an accused person from its state.
On Mr Thackeray’s threat to declare Bihari migrants as “infiltrators” and drive them out of Mumbai and Maharashtra, Mr Kumar said that it asserted that it was the duty of Maharashtra government and Centre to protect Bihari migrants and he would soon write to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about it.
Additionally, Justice M. Katju weighed in on the micro-blogging site Twitter and said, “I am deeply distressed when I see violation of this Constitutional policy by some people. For example, the bhoomiputra (son of the soil) theory propounded by some people in Maharashtra is totally un-constitutional. The people who say that non-Maharas-htrians like South Indians, U.P.ites, Biharis, etc shou-ld get out of Maharashtra because they are not bhumiputra forget that in that case 95% Maharashtrians will also have to get out of Maharashtra because the real sons of the soil of Maharashtra are the Bhils and other tribals. (sic)”
“If non-Maharashtrians are made to leave Maharashtra then Maharashtraians in Delhi, U.P, Punjab etc will also have to go back to Maharashtra,” Mr Katju added.