New Delhi: A scuffle broke out between Bhartiya Janata Party and Maha Vikas Aghadi MLAs outside the Maharashtra Assembly in Mumbai on Wednesday after shouting slogans at each other. According to a PTI report, NCP MLAs carried carrots to the steps of the Vidhan Bhavan to taunt the Shiv Sena-BJP coalition. The Shinde-faction MLAs tried to snatch the carrot from the hands of the NCP legislators, after which tensions flared up between them.
Sena MLA Mahesh Shinde (from the CM's faction) and NCP MLC Amol Mitkari then virtually came to blows at the steps of the legislature building. Some legislators from the two sides then intervened and diffused the tension.
Earlier today, the BJP and Shinde-faction legislators staged a protest against former CM Uddhav Thackeray and his son Aaditya Thackeray at the Vidhan Bhavan premises. They carried banners with messages alleging corruption in the cash-rich Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and claimed the Thackerays compromised Hindutva for power, PTI reported.
Some of the banners carried the message: "Raja stayed indoors due to fear of COVID-19 while friends of the yuvraj looted the treasury." The MLAs also shouted slogans like "standing committee che khoke...Matoshree okay," alleging corruption in the BMC with the support of Thackerays. 'Matoshree' is Uddhav Thackeray's residence in Bandra.
The standing committee is the governing body of the BMC, where the elections are due.
Bharat Gogawale, the MLA from the Shinde camp said that the opposition legislators need not have come near them when they were staging the protest, as per PTI.
"They started arguing first. When they protested all these days, we did not interfere," he said according to the report.
Both sides were shouting slogans against each other for some time before they went inside the house.