MUMBAI, 28 March 2008 — Workers of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) on Wednesday night pasted thousands of posters in suburban Dadar, mocking Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan for going back on his decision to donate agricultural land to farmers in Pune’s Maval region.
Yesterday police removed the posters.
The MNS action followed Bachchan’s remark in an interview with an English-language tabloid recently that he did not care about remarks made against him by Raj Thackeray, the MNS chief.
In one huge poster, a tall man resembling Bachchan is shown saying in the Marathi language: “Return my donated land.” At the bottom the speaker is described as a “superstar farmer.”
The MNS swipe at the actor came after Bachchan went back on his decision to donate the farmland that he bought in Pune from the farmers. In a letter addressed to the sub divisional officer of Maval on Tuesday, the actor said he wanted to unconditionally withdraw his earlier decision to donate the land to the original owners.
This is the second time MNS targeted Bachchan. Last month Raj Thackeray alleged that Bachchan was more loyal to his northern home state of Uttar Pradesh than Maharashtra. Meanwhile, Shiv Sena yesterday played down mass resignations by the party’s New Delhi unit, including its chief Jai Bhagwan Goel on Wednesday. “We are not going to be affected,” the party’s Rajya Sabha member and spokesman Sanjay Raut said. “In Mumbai and Maharashtra, those north Indians who were with us are with us, we are not affected at all,” he said.
Shiv Sena units in north India, including in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, have spilt from the parent body over attacks on north Indians by Sena and MNS members in Maharashtra. “We don’t want to be a part of a party that wants to divide India once again,” Goel was quoted as saying.
