Maharashtra BJP minister Ashish Shelar has compared recent attacks on non-Marathi speaking migrants in Mumbai to the Pahalgam terrorist attack in Jammu & Kashmir, suggesting that the victims in both cases were “Hindus”.
“In Pahalgam, people were killed because of their religion. Here in Maharashtra, Hindus are being assaulted only because of the language they speak. What’s the difference?” Shelar said at a press conference in Mumbai.
The remark comes amid heightened tensions following multiple incidents in Mumbai where workers of Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) attacked shopkeepers and migrant workers allegedly for speaking Hindi instead of Marathi.
The BJP leader also called the recent coming together of former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray of the Shiv Sena (UBT) and his cousin Raj Thackeray an “opportunistic alliance”.
“Uddhav cannot survive without power. He left the BJP when he didn’t get the CM’s chair and now seeks a BMC seat by any means necessary,” he alleged.
Shelar said the BJP would protect the interests of both Marathi speakers and Hindus but would do so through “development politics, not hatred”.
The Pahalgam massacre claimed 26 lives on April 22.