Uma dares Thackeray, vows to perform Chhath in Mumbai

05/03/2008

Uma dares Thackeray, vows to perform Chhath in Mumbai

Bhopal, March 5 : Daring Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray, Bharatiya Janshakti President Uma Bharti Wednesday said she will go to Mumbai with her supporters to perform Chhath Puja there.

"I will go to Mumbai with a train full of followers from Uttar Pradesh to celebrate Chhath, and I challenge him (Raj Thackeray) to stop me from doing so," Uma Bharti said.

Her remarks follow Thackeray's tirade against people from north India settled in Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra. Thackeray had ridiculed people from Bihar for celebrating north Indian festival of Chhath Puja - which falls on sixth day after Diwali - with much fanfare.

Uma Bharti asked Bollywood actors Nana Patekar and Salman Khan to apologize for supporting Thackeray's tirade against north Indians and threatened their films would be banned in the state.

"They shall apologise or we will not allow their movies to be screened in the state", Bharati told a gathering of demonstrators who had gathered to burn the effigies of all the three Wednesday evening.

The former Madhya Pradesh chief minister also joined the demonstrators who first beat up the effigies of Raj Thackeray, Nana Patekar and Salman Khan with slippers before consigning them to flames.

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(IANS)