BJP parliamentarian Nishikant Dubey on Saturday asked whether he had taught Hindi to Raj Thackeray, taunting the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief for his threat in Hindi to thrash the MP if he came to Mumbai.
"One BJP MP said he’d beat up Marathi people. You come to Mumbai. Mumbai ke samundar me dubo dubo ke maarenge (We’ll duck you in the Mumbai sea and pummel you)," Raj had said, breaking into Hindi from Marathi, in Mumbai on Friday.
Raj was referring to Dubey's "patak patak ke maarenge" (will thrash you) threat, issued in response to Hindi speakers being slapped and forced to apologise by Sena cadres for allegedly insulting the Marathi language.
"I have taught Raj Thackeray Hindi?" Dubey asked on X in response to a video of the MNS leader’s attack on him.
Thackeray cousins Raj and Uddhav — the Shiv Sena (UBT) chief — had ended their two-decade estrangement to come together at a rally in Mumbai early this month to protest what they called "Hindi imposition".
Their joint rally is perceived as key to the Devendra Fadnavis government’s decision to roll back its policy of making Hindi the default third language at primary schools.
However, the cousins' cadres triggered controversy by assaulting several non-Marathi traders and a migrant auto-rickshaw driver, accusing them of having insulted the Marathi language.
This prompted Dubey, MP from Godda in Jharkhand, to launch into a diatribe saying Maharashtra survived on money generated by mineral-rich north Indian states. He dared the Thackerays to "come to Bihar and UP", saying they would be beaten up if they did.
On Friday, Raj addressed a public meeting in the Mira Bhayandar area of Mumbai where his cadres had earlier this month slapped a trader multiple times for not speaking in Marathi.
Raj firmly backed the "Marathi-style" action by his cadres and said those who live and earn in Mumbai "must learn Marathi".
Dubey too defended his "patak patak ke maarenge" threat. "I stand by my statements," he said in an interview with ANI.
"I am proud that my mother tongue is Hindi…. Raj Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray are not some great monarchs. I'm an MP, and I do not take the law into my hands. But wherever they go, people will respond," he was quoted as saying.
Dubey claimed that only 31 to 32 per cent of Mumbai residents were Marathi speakers.