A defiant MNS chief Raj Thackeray on Saturday justified the attacks on North Indian taxi drivers and vendors in Mumbai as “spontaneous outburst” of his followers in response to provocation by Samajwadi Party leaders. He threw gauntlet at the Maharashtra government questioning the grounds on which they could arrest him.

After keeping away from the media for past six days, Raj met the press at his party’s headquarters Rajgarh in Central Mumbai to explain his stand. Curiously, the press event was open to only Marathi press on invitation. He accused the Hindi media as “Bhaiyya journalists” who forgot their professional role to don pro-Hindi robes during their coverage of past week’s events.

Raj said his comments were deliberately presented in a distorted fashion and the provocations by the SP leaders. He said it was the SP Mumbai president and Rajya Sabha MP Abu Azmi who started the whole thing by threatening to distribute lathis to North Indians if their programmes in Mumbai were opposed.

“I only responded to his threats by stating that if you distribute lathis, we will respond by swords,” Raj said.
“When the two generals talk of war, it is the soldiers on the border who fight and die. In the same way, it the drivers and vendors who bore the brunt of violence, it is these very people who attend the rallies and meetings (of SP leaders),” he said.

He dismissed calling taxi drivers as “poor drivers” and said they behave arrogantly quite often. He said it is the Marathi youngsters whose jobs are taken away by people from UP and Bihar.
The MNS chief said he stood by his remarks and is ready to face the consequences.

Justifying his stand, Raj invoked everybody, including prime minister Manmohan Singh. “If the Prime Minister can rake up the issue of ban on turbans for the Sikhs in France when the French President came to India, if Karunanidhi can take up the issue of problems of Tamils in Malaysia with the Malaysian government, then how come I am dubbed as a goonda when I speak about the self-respect of the state?” Raj wrote in a Marathi daily.
“Even if the whole world opposes my stand, my party and I will continue the struggle to protect Marathi culture and people and will trample the goondaism of UP and Bihar,” Raj said.