Case registered against MNS leader for threatening Dalit man

A case has been registered against MNS leader Harshwardhan Jadhav for allegedly threatening a Dalit paan shop owner in Maharashtra's Aurangabad city, a police official said on Monday.

The former MLA, however, blamed the Shiv Sena for the complaint against him.

The complainant, Nitin Ratan Dabhade (30), told the police that he had set up a temporary paan (betel) booth in Krantinagar area of the city.

Jadhav came there on Saturday and asked him to remove the booth. He also allegedly used rude words against Dabhade's religion and threatened to kill him, the official said quoting the complaint.

A case has been registered by the Kranti Chowk police against Jadhav under provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, he said.

Jadhav, who earlier represented Kannad Assembly seat in Aurangabad district, resigned from the Shiv Sena in 2018 after being miffed with the party leadership over the issue of reservations for the Marathas, Dhangars and Muslims.

He contested the last year's state Assembly polls as an Independent and lost to Uday Singh Rajput of the Shiv Sena.

When contacted, Jadhav, who recently joined the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), alleged that the Shiv Sena was behind the complaint against him.

"The Shiv Sena is behind this complaint. I demanded removal of the booth and the police acted on it. The matter was over there. But, I later got to know that some Shiv Sena workers accompanied the complainant to the police station," he said.