MNS, Congress set for confrontation on Mumbai''s streets

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, November 28

Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and the Mumbai unit of the Congress party are all set for a confrontation on Mumbai's streets over the issue of hawking.

Over the past few weeks, MNS activists have been carrying out a campaign against hawkers occupying public places particularly near railway stations. The party's workers have often resorted to violence and vandalised the temporary stalls put up by the vendors, most of who are North Indians. .

On the other hand, the Congress party's Mumbai unit chief Sanjay Nirupam who is mobilising the city's substantial North Indian community have asked the hawkers to retaliate. As a result several MNS activists have been beaten up by hawkers in recent days.

Last Sunday evening, several MNS workers who were trying to force shopkeepers to install signboards in Marathi in the suburb of Vikhroli got into a scuffle with some North Indian shopkeepers after which they were attacked. Four MNS workers, including a local leader of the party — Upendra Shewale — were badly beaten up and one of them had his
skull broken with a paver block, police said.

Angered by the attack several MNS workers then attacked North Indian people living in the area, police said. At least four MNS workers have been arrested for rioting, according to police.

While condemning the violence, Nirupam justified the attack on the MNS workers. “We are against violence. But when MNS goondas threaten the livelihood of hawkers even in front of the police there is bound to be some reaction,” Nirupam said in a message on Twitter.

Raj Thackeray also held a meeting of his party's office-bearers and asked them not take assault on party workers lying down. “I want workers who will beat up others not get beaten up,” Thackeray is reported to have told his office-bearers.

With rough necks patronised by the Congress and the MNS flexing their muscles, police said they have increased patrolling in sensitive areas where members of the North Indian and Maharashtrian communities live together.