For the past few days, some Mumbaikars are waking up to find young Maharashtrian men supplying milk at their doorstep instead of the traditional milkmen from Uttar Pradesh.

The change has been forced by Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), as part of a new strategy in its campaign against migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

The aim is to get Maharashtrians to enter professions and trades dominated by migrants from these two north Indian states and slowly reclaim them.

And the ubiquitous doodhwalla is their first target.

Mumbai’s daily demand for milk hovers around 40 lakh litres, much of which comes from western and northern Maharashtra. And the production and distribution are pretty much controlled by migrants from north India.

The Maharashtra Navnirman Kaamgar Sena, the labour wing of Raj’s party, plans to break this domination and has announced a 110-member Shri Krishna Doodh Vitaran Sanstha, to be formally launched on March 9, the MNS foundation day.

The distribution system, which has already started functioning in parts of the central suburbs, will supply milk to residential complexes, tea-stalls, hotels and restaurants between Mulund and Ghatkopar.

The MNS is not restricting itself to just milk distribution though. It is also training young Maharashtrians to make bhelpuri, panipuri and sevpuri — as part of the streetfood business, which is another north Indian bastion in Mumbai.

“We cannot resort to violence all the time,” says Manoj Chavan, chief of the MNS workers’ union. “We have therefore decided to capture the areas where north Indians are financially strong. We are inspiring our youth to take over their businesses. If we grab their monetary pulse, they’ll be forced to look elsewhere.”

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