MUMBAI: Following the recent outrage over the Cabinet decision to make Marathi compulsory for cab drivers, Chief Minister Ashok Chavan submitted on Friday evening a draft cultural policy recommending measures to promote Marathi language and culture, including the setting up of an academy for spoken Marathi, and making it compulsory for ministers and officials to communicate and speak only Marathi at functions.
The government’s draft cultural policy headed by A.H. Salunke also recommends that ministers and officials communicate with foreign dignitaries in Marathi with interpreters to help them communicate.
The Salunke committee, besides other recommendations to promote Marathi, has also recommended appointing Marathi officers on the lines of Hindu officers in state and federal government offices.
The draft cultural policy committee in its report also stated that names of speakers and guests at state government functions placed on stages should be in Marathi and according to necessity in other languages. It further recommended that notice boards in all government and semi-government offices, schools, colleges and universities should be in Marathi.
It was also recommended that the Maharashtra government requests the Gujarat government and other Hindi states about the setting up of Marathi academies in their respective states.
In another major development, the Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackrey got a unique gift on his 84th birthday on Saturday when the Shiv Sena bagged the Bhiwandi East assembly seat in the by-election.
Sena candidate Ramesh Mahatre defeated Samajwadi Party candidate Farhan Azmi by 1,676 votes. Surprisingly, Farhan’s father and Samajwadi Party state president and legislator Abu Asim Azmi had won this seat in the recently-held assembly polls, but had to vacate it as he won from another Shivajinagar constituency, following which the by-elections to the vacated Bhiwandi East assembly seat was held.
It was quite visible from when votes were being counted that there would be a tough fight between Farhan and Mahatre. Farhan who was leading in some segments was initially trailing in the later rounds and could not regain a lead and lost.
According to sources, in a tactical move to defeat Farhan and elect a Marathi candidate, the local Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) workers had helped the Shiv Sena in the by-polls.
In yet another development, the controversial state top cop A.N. Roy, who was removed from the top post of state director general of police (DGP) by the Bombay High Court in February, was re-appointed as the state DGP once again. The Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut and (Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state unit president Eknath Khadse protested the re-appointment.
According to sources, the Congress party was insisting on having another controversial DGP, Hassan Gafoor, to be their choice for the top post, but its alliance partner, the National Congress Party (NCP), finally had its say of having Roy as its choice for the state DGP post. The post was vacant since October and it is alleged that the Congress deliberately kept it vacant so that it could negotiate with the NCP to have Gafoor as the state DGP.
