Maharashtra Congress on Monday temporarily put off its planned agitation outside the official residence of Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis here citing inconvenience caused to motorists, but not before BJP functionaries took to streets to confront supporters of the ruling party.
The agitation was part of demonstrations that Congress has planned across the state to demand an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi for allegedly "insulting" Maharashtra in his comments made in the Lok Sabha recently, in connection with the Covid-19 pandemic. Even though Congress postponed the agitation, the Congress and BJP workers came face to face and shouted slogans against each other. The state Congress chief Nana Patole has hit out against the BJP over alleged attempts by the saffron party to make a protest by the Mumbai Congress, turn violent. He added that the party will continue to protest till the Prime Minister apologises.
"BJP wants to make this protest violent, but we won't let that happen. Congress will work with Gandhi Ji's non-violence ideology. A female BJP worker bit a female police officer. They've crossed limits of shamelessness," Patole said.
The Mumbai Police stopped Patole, who was to lead the protest, outside his residence here and detained other workers of the party.
BJP MLA Ashish Shelar claimed that Congress's agitation had failed and alleged that the police also detained some of his party leaders and workers who were waiting to confront Congress workers if the latter showed up outside the residence of Fadnavis.
Fadnavis said there was no question of an apology from Modi, and rather the Congress should apologise for "ruining" the country.
