Raj Thackeray is media creation: Deshmukh

Mumbai, Oct 30: Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on Thursday, oct 30 described MNS president Raj Thackeray's tirade against migrant North Indian workers by espousing cause of the Marathi-speaking people as mere 'media creation'.

In an interview, on the eve of completion of four years of his second tenure in office on October 31, he said ''this issue is getting prominence only in Mumbai-Pune-Thane-Nasik belt and not in other parts of the state.'' Mr Deshmukh, who always raised objection over repeat telecast of some incidents by the electronic media, said the small incidents of violence are repeatedly shown on the news chanels, citing the instance of a media report showing MNS chief who had stated that the party activists would disrupt the services of Jet Airways if its 1,900 sacked employees were not reinstated. The electronic media made Raj Thackeray hero by giving prominence to that statement.

''The government is making all efforts to provide jobs to Marathi people. At local level in the state, all the teachers and other government staff appointed are necessarily locals,'' he pointed out.

Commenting on display of Marathi signboards by the establishments, the Chief Minister said the government is of the view that the Marathi nameplates should be displayed by the establishments. It is upto the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance, which is ruling in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for the last 10 years, to implement the same in the city, he said.

Speaking about providing class III and IV level jobs in the Railways to local people, he said ''I have asked the chief secretary to find out whether the advertisements were given in Marathi language newspapers or not, and also to check whether the papers could be answered in Marathi or not.'' Raj had first raised his banner against the north Indians in February. As part of this tirade, his activists beat up several north Indians candidates, who had come here to appear for Railway Recruitment Board examination held on October 19. The issue became quite volatile when a Bihari youth who tried to hijack the bus recently at the gun point was killed in an encounter followed by the murder of Uttar Pradesh-based youth in railway today.

The Congress had earlier tacitly helped Shiv Sena in the late 60s to curb the growth of Communist movement in Mumbai. Now, it is applying the same tactic against Shiv Sena in a bid to create a divide in its votebank.

Mr Deshmukh said the government was taking all necessary steps to curb the spread of such violent incidents and it was also booking the culprits.

He hoped that there would not be any repercussions of such violent incidents against the Maharashtrians in other parts of the country.

UNI