Sena packs off Ghulam Ali
Even as CM Fadnavis promises the artist full protection
The Shiv Sena on Wednesday struck a discordant note: It threatened to disband a musical performance of Pakistani ghazal singer Ghulam Ali, who was scheduled to showcase his talents on Friday at Shanmukhanand Hall, a venue of several Sena functions, at Matunga. In the vitiated political atmosphere, the threat had immediate impact and the concert has been cancelled.
Incidentally, the BJP, which governs the state along with its ally Shiv Sena, was singing a different tune in the matter with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis asserting that Ali was welcome to perform in Mumbai. "The Maharashtra government is ready to give full protection to the singer. It is wrong to involve Ghulam Ali in Indo-Pak politics," he said. A similar viewpoint was aired by Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi of the BJP, who told a TV channel: "What the Sena is doing with Ghulam Ali is absolutely wrong. People like him must be kept above and beyond borders."
That all is not well with the two allies was apparent when Minister of State (home) Ranjeet Patil said that action will be taken against the Shiv Sena if the organisers of the concert lodged a formal complaint in the matter. Though some observers dismissed it as posturing by the BJP, others pointed at the simmering differences between the two allies on Kalyan Dombivli poll, where both parties may end up contesting alone.
Sena leaders, however, were keen to underscore that it is a known party stand that “they do not want any kind of cultural ties with Pakistan.” On Wednesday, Akshay Badrapurkar, general secretary of Chitrapat Sena, went to the Shanmukhanand Hall office and asked the management to cancel the show, if they did not want the Sena to create a ruckus outside the hall.
Late in the evening Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and the organizer of the concert, Randhir Singh, had a meeting at the mayor’s bungalow,
where Singh said he would cancel the show. "We are against any kind of cultural association with Pakistan. We cannot have ties with a country that kills our soldiers. They are against us why should we let their singers perform here," said Badrapurkar, chief of the Chitrapat Sena. Putting the threat in perspective, Sena leader Sanjay Raut told ANI here,“We are not opposing Ghulam Ali but opposing terrorism by Pakistan. Shiv Sena is against any relations with Pakistan till they desist from exporting stop terror.” This is not the first time that Sena has come out against Pakistani artists and cricketers. In April 2015, Shiv Sena had ensured cancellation of Ghulam Ali’s Pune concert as well.