MNS Leaders Detained Ahead Of Rally Over Marathi Row; Fadnavis Says They Didn’t Follow Route
Tensions flared in the Mira Bhayander area on Tuesday as police detained several leaders and workers of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) to prevent them from holding a rally over the escalating Marathi language row. The MNS slammed the pre-dawn detentions as an “Emergency-like” situation, but Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis clarified that the party had not been denied permission to protest but had refused to take an alternate route suggested by the police.
Heavy police deployment was seen in the area as the MNS planned to stage a major rally to counter a recent protest by local traders. The traders had been demanding action against MNS workers who were caught on video assaulting a food stall owner for not speaking in Marathi earlier this month.
The police action began in the early hours of Tuesday, with key leaders like MNS Thane-Palghar chief Avinash Jadhav being taken into preventive custody, effectively derailing the party’s plan to march to Mumbai.
“At 3.30 this morning, our leaders were arrested,” said MNS leader Sandeep Deshpande. “The police are showing respect to the protest march of Gujarati traders, but are not giving permission to the march of Marathi people. What kind of emergency-like situation is this?”
However, Chief Minister Fadnavis refuted the claim that permission was denied outright. “It would be wrong to say that we did not permit the protest. I have spoken to the commissioner, who told me that the police did not refuse permission,” Fadnavis stated. “They had asked for permission for a meeting. We asked them to take an alternate route, but they did not agree to it,” he added, defending the police action.
The incident is the latest flashpoint in a series of confrontations driven by the MNS’s aggressive push for the use of Marathi in the state. Following the assault on the food stall owner in Bhayander, a case was registered against seven MNS workers. Last week, MNS workers had also vandalised the Mumbai office of an entrepreneur who had posted on X about not being fluent in Marathi.
