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Decrying the recent ink attack on senior Maharashtra minister Harshwardhan Patil, Shiv Sena today said the politics in the state was never this "muddied and vindictive."
"Nobody is willing to take up cudgels for the Marathi speaking people who are being oppressed in Karnataka's border areas, but everyone is moving with a bomb strapped to their stomach for caste and caste-based politics," an editorial in Sena mouthpiece Saamana said.
Patil, the state cooperation minister, had sustained an eye injury after some Dhangar community activists hurled ink at him during a public function at Bhigwan in Indapur tehsil of Pune district on August 8.
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"This incident does not befit the culture and prestige of Maharashtra," the editorial said.
"The law and courts should not let the perpetrators go scot-free," it said.
"Dhangar community was never known to be violent," it said.
The state government took a political decision to give 16% quota for Marathas in jobs and education and as a result, Dhangars also jumped in the fray with a similar demand, the Sena organ said.
Throwing ink (which turned out to be a chemical) on a minister in the name of democracy is not freedom but anarchy, the editorial said.
