A day after Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) activists attacked North Indian candidates appearing for a Railway examination in Mumbai, the matter came up for a heated discussion in the Lok Sabha, finally leading to its adjournment almost an hour before schedule.

BJP MP Kharabela Swain’s remark that only people from Bihar, that too belonging to a particular caste and religion, had got 70 per cent of the jobs in Group D Railway Services in Orissa led to an uproar, causing the final adjournment on Monday. He further alleged that only people from Bihar had been appointed to the Zonal Railways Users’ Consultative Committees in some zones. Insinuating misconduct, Swain also pointed out that Oriyas could crack the IAS exam but not a Railways exam.

As the House resumed in the afternoon, RJD’s Devendra Prasad Yadav called for imposition of Article 355 in Maharashtra calling the the state Government irresponsible and ineffective. Yadav added that Raj Thackeray was “indulging in a new form of terrorism targeting people of a particular region”. He also said that Railway Protection Force’s Director General had sought more police cover for the examination from the state but his requests went unheeded.

Even as Samajwadi Party’s Ramji Lal Suman demanded an immediate ban on MNS and said Thackeray had been targeting north Indians for a long time, BJP’s Shahnawaz Hussain asked that while people from India could go all over the world to work, would they now “need a work permit from Thackeray to work in Maharashtra?”

... contd.