Forcing fasting Muslim to eat: Shiv Sena plays victim, blames Congress

Following the controversy over reports that Shiv Sena MPs allegedly forced a Muslim catering manager at Maharashtra Sadan to break his Ramazan fast and consume a chappati, the Shiv Sena has vehemently denied the incident and alleged that it is an attempt to defame the party with an eye on upcoming assembly election by congress and NCP.

According to the reports, the incident occurred last week at the swanky new Maharashtra Sadan in Lutyens Delhi when a group of around 15 MPs were having a meeting, where complaints about the lack of services at the sadan were being discussed.

However, the Shiv Sena MPs have denied the incident and termed it as a political conspiracy.

“It’s a conspiracy by Congress. The Resident Commissioner Bipin Mallick has backing of chief minister Prithviraj Chavan. This is an attempt to defame Shiv Sena in view of the upcoming assembly elections,” Vinayak Raut, a Shiv Sena MP told Firstpost.

Denying the alleged incident, Raut said, “We didn’t even know that the supervisor is a Muslim. The facilities provided by the canteen are very poor. While the rooms given to us are from general category, the VVIP rooms are allotted to the MPs from other states. The officials are using the ‘Maharashtra Sadan’ as lodging and boarding.”

Shivajirao Adhalrao Patil, Shiv Sena MP from Shirur Lok Sabha constituency in Pune, also denied the incident. “It is a political conspiracy against us. No such incident has happened on that day,” Patil said.

“We went to the canteen to show the poor quality of the food. We were trying to pull apart chapatti into two pieces but failed to do so. So, we asked the supervisor to eat it but we didn’t force him to eat the chapatti,” he added.

Other Shiv Sena leaders have also accused the congress and NCP of playing dirty politics. “Since the Maharashtra assembly elections are just a month away, the congress-NCP is playing the communal card again. It seems that it hasn’t learnt anything from the humiliating defeat in Lok Sabha and are desperately attempting to please the communities to retain the power in the state,” said a Shiv Sena leader.

He added that such tactics would not work for the assembly election as people are quite aware about the congress-NCP’s dirty politics.