A mild scuffle broke out between BJP and Shiv Sena MLAs in Maharashtra Assembly on Tuesday, after the BJP legislators marched into the Assembly with banners seeking assistance to farmers affected by unseasonal rains.
The banner referred to a report published in Shiv Sena’s mouthpiece ‘Saamana’ last month, which demanded ₹25,000 per hectare as compensation to the affected farmers.
The Sena dubbed the ₹10,000 crore aid announced by the then BJP-led State government for crop damage, as inadequate.
Latching on to that article, the Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis along with state BJP president Chandrakant Patil marched to the Vidhan Bhawan.
The BJP MLAs tried to display the banner in front of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Finance Minister Jayant Patil asking Shiv Sena to fulfil the demand.
Shiv Sena MLAs snatched the banners leading to a physical alteration between the MLAs even as Sena’s Bhaskar Jadhav and BJP’s Ashish Shelar rushed to break the fight.
Speaker Nana Patole adjourned the House for 30 minutes. When the House re-assembled, the noisy protests continued following which the speaker adjourned the House for the day.
On Sunday Mr. Fadnavis demanded that the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government led by Mr. Thackeray disburse ₹23,000 crore to farmers for waiving their outstanding loans.
The former Chief Minister said Mr. Thackeray, and the NCP and Congress earlier demanded disbursement of ₹23,000 crore.
“Now it is time for them (as part of the alliance government) to implement it,” he said.
Mr. Thackeray, who is also the Shiv Sena president, took over as Maharashtra Chief Minister on November 28.
(With inputs from PTI)
