Sena up toold tricksyet again

Sena up toold tricksyet again
VAIBHAV PURANDARE

MUMBAI, JUNE 30: About 200 Shiv Sainiks literally brushed aside the law and blackened the signboards of important banking and corporate establishments at Hutatma Chowk in a clandestine operation carried out late Friday night. The secret smearing was done, amid strong swearing, to press the Sena's recently renewed demand for Marathi signboards across Mumbai and Maharashtra.

Among the offices that bore the brunt of the Sena's brush and sprays were HongKong Bank, UTI Bank, New India Co-operative Bank, the plush Bombay Store, and the government-run Kashmir Arts Emporium. Restaurants and electronic goods shops were also not spared, and restaurant owners and security guards stood speechless as Sainiks crossed out the names of the establishments with black paint, tar and sprays and walked away. Shop-owners refused to comment on the Sena's action.

The entire stretch from D N Road to the Jehangir Art Gallery was targetted, including Mahatma Gandhi Road, Bhagat Singh Road and Pherozshah Mehta Road. And establishments of two kinds were chosen for the ``treatment'': those with signboards only in English and those with their English names written in big letters and the Marathi ones in smaller letters.

Apart from the blackening act, performed with the help of ladders in certain cases despite a ban on assembly declared in the area under Section 144, the Sena's Sthaniya Lokadhikar Samiti that spearheaded the agitation also stuck posters on the shutters of the ``erring establishments'' saying Maharashtrat Marathi Aavashyak, Marathi Bhashecha Vaapar Kara, Sarkari Niyamanchi Ammalbajavni Kara (Marathi is a must in Maharashtra, use it and implement the government's rules). According to Section 20 (A) of the Shops and Establishments Act, 1961, it is mandatory for establishments to have Marathi signboards. The Act, however, also allows for a signboard in any other language along with the Devanagari one.

The MRA police soon turned up, rounded up a few Sainiks but let them off later.

``We are not against English signboards but Marathi boards should also be there. They should get equal importance. We first wrote to the mayor three months ago asking for implementation of the rules but only got assurances. The chief supervisor, shops and establishments, R S Nirbhavane, wrote to us expressing inability to implement the rules due to shortage of staff. Now we have run out of patience. Marathi must be given its prime position in Mumbai and Maharashtra,'' a Samiti spokesperson said, adding, despite evidence to the contrary, that this agitation was spontaneous.

However, a Sena sympathiser witness to the Sena's agitation tonight wondered why the party was raking up the Marathi issue only now. ``We had asked the Sena to do this five years ago, when it came to power. In the four-and-a-half years of its reign, the Sena did nothing forget signboards though it would have been easy for it as the ruling party to make everyone fall in line. Now suddenly it has remembered the Marathi people.''