No Marathi, no banking, Raj Thackeray warns

The business language in banks located in Maharashtra should also be in Marathi, warned Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray during a public meeting in Thane on Saturday.

Addressing the meeting near Gadkari Rangaytan, Thackeray said the next protests will be against the banks which do not use Marathi as one of the business languages. “The MNS will strike against such banks,” the MNS chief warned.

He also accused the state government of trying to construct the Samruddhi ‘Mahamarg’ only for creating a separate state out of Maharashtra.

Issuing a warning against such a move, Thackeray warned that if the corridor is against the interest of the state, the MNS will break that road.

Saturday’s address was Thackeray’s first public meeting after the one on Elphinstone Road stampede, which drew a huge crowd.

Thackeray is famous for aggressive speeches and always a major crowd puller. The Thane meeting was no exception.

During his speech, the MNS leader also touched upon issues like protests against hawkers, police “atrocities” the BJP-led Fadnavis government, farmers’ plight, Swacchh Bharat project (Varanasi), toll tax issue and bullet train among others.

On the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan, the MNS chief pointed out that in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency, Varnasi, “dead bodies keep rising up on the Ganges”.

“If he cannot clean his own constituency, how can he clean the entire country?” Thackeray said.

He also spoke about the “attacks” by police and said that he and his party always fight for what is right.

“We fight for what is correct and is under the law, the government should implement the laws, but they don’t and we have to face consequences like going to jail,” he said, in an apparent attack on Thane police commissioner Parambir Singh.

Criticising the bullet train project, the MNS chief warned the people of Maharashtra that ultimately it is them who will be paying the tax for a transport that they might never use. “The bullet train project is the revenge of the state of Gujarat that had been separated during the Samyukt Maharashtra movement,” he claimed.

He also charged the state government with foul play by provoking people from various communities and those who used to stay together in harmony are hating each other.

Asking the “Marathi Mannos” to be alert against such tactics, Thackeray claimed that the government is playing the colonial game of dividing and rule policy.

The business language in banks located in Maharashtra should also be in Marathi. The next protests will be against the banks which do not use Marathi as one of the business languages