Doing some plain speaking on the contentious issue of continued influx of north-Indians into Mumbai, MNS chief Raj Thackeray said here on Sunday night that he would not tolerate such migrants staying in the metropolis and other parts of Maharashtra after 1995 who insulted or misbehaved with Maharashtrian women, committed crimes and engineered riots in the state.
Making a distinction between the north-Indian migrants who had come and settled in Mumbai and other parts of the state before and after 1995, Raj said: “The situation in Mumbai and other parts in the state is now than it was before 1995. After 1995 when the government announced a scheme of giving free hutments for slum dwellers, the situation changed drastically. We have no issue with people who are working and living people here peacefully. However, I will not tolerate such people (north Indians) who insult or misbehave with our women. Especially we will not tolerate such those taxiwallahs who use abusive words against our women”.
Speaking at a function organised by Uttar Bharatiya Mahapanchayat at Kandivli in north Mumbai, Rah alluded to the increased criminal activities in Mumbai, Raj said: “The criminals from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have proved to be headache for the Mumbai police. Most of the people come here and commit crimes and go back to places in UP, Bihar, Jharkand and border areas of Arunachal Pradesh”.
“Similarly, we do not witness riots in places where Marathi Muslims live. The riots take place in such places where migrant Muslim live. For a riot took place at Azad Maidan a few years. Ninety to 95 per cent people of people behind the riots were migrants from north-India,” the MNS chief said.
Contesting the criticism he faced over his party’s stand against influx of people from north India into India most of his critics had not read the Inter-state Migrant Workmen Act, 1979, Raj said that his party functioned within the ambit of the Indian Constitution. “People say that MNS workers insult the Indian Constitution (by speaking and acting against north-Indians) which promises everyone freedom to move to any part of the country and settle there. I have strong reason to criticise me have not read Inter-State Migration Act. The law does not say that people from any state can settle anywhere else and do anything they want. The law clearly states that people who migrate to other state should go to the local police register their name, mentioning the state they had come, the purpose they had come for, who had given them a job and the locality where they would settle”.
The MNS chief, who spoke in Hindi for the first time at a public meeting, said that he was merely reiterating his stand on north-Indian migrants that he had taken while speaking in Marathi and he ws doing so in Hindi.
Recalling that his party’s stand-off with north-Indians began some years ago during the agitation over jobs in railways, Raj said: “The trouble began during the agitation over railway jobs. The Railways had put out advertisements in Marathi or other local newspapers seeking applications for jobs which were actually meant for Maharashtrians. The advertisements had been published in newspapers of UP and Bihar. The job seekers came in hordes to Mumbai to appear for job examinations. We had made representations to the Railway Recruitment Board that the priority should be given to Maharashtrian youth. But nothing happened”
“Our people went to the job seekers appearing for the railway examination and tried to convince not to take examinations but the job seekers from UP and Bihar used foul language against party workers. There was no reason why my party workers should have kept quiet. They reacted in a manner they deemed fit,” the MNS said, referring to the incidents of assault by the MNS workers on job seekers from UP and Bihar in 2011.
Blaming the unchecked migration of people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to the failure on the part of the politicians from the two states to create jobs in their states, Raj said: “Uttar Pradesh has given maximum number of Prime Minister to the country, but there is still vast unemployment in that state. We in Maharashtra have created lakhs and lakhs jobs over the years and even provided sizeable number jobs to migrants. There is already so much unemployment in our state. What is wrong if we say that locals should be priority in jobs? :
Raj said that Mumbai was already bursting at the seams and it would not take more number of north-Indians coming to the metropolis. "Please tell the people in your states not to come to Mumbai any longer for jobs. If you are not able to convince them about the problems we are facing here because of the migrants, then we will take care of all such new migrants coming here for jobs in our own style," he said.
In his hour-long hard-hitting speech, Raj made no attempt to cosy up to the north-Indians present and repeatedly said that he was not deviating from his stand taken earlier against the continued influx north Indians to Mumbai.
Debunking the “impression” sought to be created across the country that Hindi was the national language, Raj said: “Hindi is a good language. Because my father was well versed in Urdu, I picked up Hindi well. Plus Hindi films also contributed to my learning the language well. But. Hindi is no way a national language. Where has the country taken a decision on a national language?. Hindi is just like any other Indian language – it could be Marathi, Tamil or Telugu etc”.