The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) group leader in the Vidhan Bhavan, Bala Nandgaonkar, says he has no regrets over the Abu Azmi episode. “We had sent letters to all MLAs asking them to take oath in Marathi but Azmi sent a letter to the State Assembly saying he would take oath in Hindi. Why create unnecessary trouble and instigate us. Even after taking oath he walked towards us.” he said. “He was later felicitated in Uttar Pradesh for taking oath in Hindi. We have no regrets with what happened in the State Assembly.”

The former Sena man, who served as the minister of state (home) in the Sena-BJP government, stormed the Sena bastion in the Assembly polls this year by winning the Sewri constituency. He is now keen to address urban and rural issues in the area. “We would continue to work and raise the issue of Marathi culture and language. Apart from that there are various problems from urban and rural areas which have to be addressed but our priority would be to concentrate on upgrading infrastructure, checking unemployment, issue of slums and immigrants coming to Mumbai,” said Nandgaonkar.

He feels strongly about Maharashtrians not being able to get flats in the high rises of Sewri despite being able to afford them. “If any of the tenants in the chawls have the capacity to buy flats in towers we would ask the developer to consider their case,” he said.

On the issue of redevelopment of old, dilapidated chawls along the Sewri-Parel-Lalbaug belt he said, “If people want to redevelop their chawls by cluster redevelopment they are free to do it. I will only see to what they want and not what I want.”