Mumbai: MVA holds ‘Jode Maro Andolan’ against Shivaji statue collapse; BJP stages counter-protest

It is protest vs protest in Mumbai on Sunday as the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance is set to march from Hutatma Chowk to Gateway of India against the recent collapse of a statue of Maratha king, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, in Malvan town of the Sindhudurg district.

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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the largest constituent of the ruling three-party Mahayuti coalition, will stage a counter-demonstration against the ‘politicisation’ of the issue.

Leaders and workers of the three MVA constituents – Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) – have started gathering at south Mumbai's Hutatma Chowk, the rally's starting point, despite police denying permission for the march, dubbed by the MVA as ‘Jode Maro Andolan’ (Hit them with shoes protest).

The Aghadi, however, had already stated that the rally will be held despite permission being denied, and that permission was sought ‘only as a matter of protocol.’

Stating that Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj ‘is God-like for us,’ Shiv Sena (UBT) Lok Sabha member, Arvind Sawant, remarked that with the collapse of the statue, ‘our devotion, honour, and self-respect collapsed and fell there.’

“We are being stopped in our own Maharashtra by our own police. I have never seen police being so ‘helpless.’ The prime minister's apology is political…see the timing. The PM always makes political statements,” Sawant told news agency ANI.

The statue was inaugurated by prime minister Narendra Modi on Navy Day in December last year. On Friday, speaking at an event in Palghar, he apologised for the collapse.

Assembly elections will be held later this year in Maharashtra. The state will witness a two-way contest between the two alliances, the ruling Mahayuti (BJP-Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party) and the opposition MVA.