Amid MNS Stir, Fadnavis Says Defiance Of Law While Demanding Marathi Use Won't Be Tolerated

Maharashtra Chief Minister warns against unlawful promotion of Marathi, following aggressive tactics by MNS.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Source : PTI

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday warned attempts by some people to take law into their hands while demanding the use of Marathi will not be tolerated, remarks coming in the backdrop of aggressive promotion of the state's official language by MNS.

''It is not wrong to insist on the use of Marathi language. But if while doing so, law is taken into hands (by someone), then it will not be tolerated and the persons concerned will be dealt with appropriately," Fadnavis told reporters here.

The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) is aggressively pushing the Marathi identity agenda ahead of civic polls in the state, including in big corporations like Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik and Nagpur.

In the last few weeks, the Raj Thackeray-led party has been seeking to enforce use of Marathi in banks and other establishments.

In separate incidents, MNS workers confronted two managers of different nationalised banks in Thane and Pune districts for not using Marathi while communicating with customers. The incidents occurred on Wednesday at Ambernath town in Thane and at Lonavala, a popular hill station in Pune, and their videos have gone viral on social media platforms.

On Thursday, MNS members secured an assurance from the manager of a private bank in Thane to install Marathi signage at their branch, and removed an English board.

At his Gudi Padwa rally on March 30, MNS president Raj Thackeray reiterated his party's stand of making Marathi mandatory for official purposes.

He warned said those who don't speak the language deliberately will be ''slapped''. 

(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)