Nationalist Congress Party activists Wednesday took out a procession condemning an editorial in the Shiv Sena mouthpiece "Saamana" that made certain references to NCP chief Sharad Pawar.
A large number of Shiv Sainiks, who had gathered outside the "Saamana" headquarters in Prabhadevi, south-central Mumbai, pushed away the NCP activists who shouted slogans even as Mumbai police rushed personnel to prevent any untoward incident.
"The Shiv Sainiks and police managed to prevent the situation from escalating and everything was normal within 15 minutes," said a Shiv Sena official.
The NCP activists became agitated following an editorial in which "Saamana" said Pawar had lost his sense of proportion after the recent Lok Sabha election debacle and he (Pawar) was talking like Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, leader of the Jama'at-ud-Da'wah, a Pakistani organisation accused of having links with the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The edit was in response to Pawar's comments a couple of days ago when he attributed the recent mob violence followed by a Pune IT techie's killing to the growth of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
"There has been one killing in Maharashtra. How is (the Narendra) Modi government responsible for it," the edit asked.
It pointed out the Modi government was not in power when Pakistani terrorists Ajmal Kasab and others attacked Mumbai in November 2008.
Last Sunday, Pawar said during a party meeting that two weeks after the BJP has come to power with full majority, communal fever is spreading, communal violence has rocked some places in Maharashtra and a techie Mohsin Sadiq Shaikh was killed by a right-wing mob allegedly allied to the Hindu Rashtra Sena.
"Pawar is speaking like Hafiz Saeed... After the disturbances following objectionable posts on social media, he said such forces have raised their head after the Modi government came to power at the Centre... It is difficult to predict what he will say when he has lost his sense of proportion after the poll debacle," the edit said.
