Mumbai : The Shiv Sena and its ally, the Republican Party of India, had their task cut out on Thursday. Hordes of activists of the two parties, determined to intimidate socialite and author Shobhaa De, converged at her residence in Maker Tower, Cuff Parade, in the afternoon armed with banners and saffron flags.
Determined to mock De for her flippant ‘vada-pav’ tweets over the State government’s decision to screen only Marathi movies in multiplexes in prime time, a steady procession of activists streamed to her residence with trays bedecked with vada pav, dahi missal, poha and thaali peeth.
The police, tipped in advance about the protest, had cordoned off Maker Tower, where De resides. The police kept detaining protestors and hustling them into vans even as chants against De rent the air. At one point, the activists upped the ante and asked her to leave Maharashtra and declared that they would not tolerate any ‘insult’ to the Marathi language and culture.
Saamna, Shiv Sena’s mouthpiece, in its editorial on Thursday set the tone for the protest by referring to De as ‘‘Shobhaa Aunty’’ who belongs to ‘‘Page 3.’’ The editorial, dipping in sarcasm, further said: ‘‘She had wondered whether now only vada-pav and dahi-misal would be available in multiplexes instead of popcorn… Shabaash! A great way to repay the people of the state where you were born! It was understandable if someone else had made the remarks, but a Marathi woman doing it is regretful.”
Taking a dig at De’s reference in one of her tweets to the CM’s dadagiri’, the editorial pointed out that in the past if Chhatrapati Shivaji and the late Bal Thackeray had not shown ‘dadagiri’, all of Shobha aunty’s predecessors and descendents would be born in Pakistan and probably attending Page 3 parties sporting ‘burqas’!
While the protest was on outside her residence, De came down to speak to the media and reiterated that she was a proud Maharashtrian and cannot fathom what part of her comments had offended the two parties. “More than my comments about the government’s directive, I believe the crude attacks in Saamna against me are intolerable. No one should be attacked in the manner Saamna has targeted me,” De said.
The BJP, on the other, deftly distanced itself from the issue, stating that it was doing its job of protecting Marathi culture and that De had the right to protest. “It was unfortunate that I was not in the Assembly yesterday when the attempt to move a privilege motion was made. I told the members, who wanted to move the motion, that De has every right to criticise the decisions she feels are not right,” Cultural minister Vinod Tawde told reporters at the press room in Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha on Thursday.
