MNS backs Nitesh Rane assault on official

Mumbai: Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has come out in support of Nitesh Rane, son of former chief minister Narayan Rane, who dumped mud on a PWD engineer.

MNS general secretary and spokesperson Sandeep Deshpande said that the quality of roads was bad and they were filled with potholes. If not engineers, who else could be asked such questions, he said. Asked whether such actions would improve the quality of roads, Mr Deshpande said that they had improved the quality of Nachiketa road near Dadar plaza.

“In order to change things, we take such actions. If the officers do their jobs properly, we don’t need to do such things. But because they don’t work properly, as public representatives, we have to take action. In that context, we have declared our support to Nitesh Rane,” he said.

Mr Rane courted controversy on Thursday when he heckled PWD deputy engineer Prakash Shedekar on the bridge over Gadnadi river along the Mumbai-Goa highway and threw mud on him to protest potholes on a bridge near Kankavli.

Kankavli is considered a stronghold of the politically poweful Rane family. Mr Deshpande said that while action had been taken against those who questioned the engineer, what about the engineer responsible for the poor roads. He said that whatever had been done by Mr Rane was appropriate. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader also blamed the engineer/s for killing thousands of people in road accidents.

Mr Deshpande said that Mr Rane had been arrested and remanded to four or five days’ police custody. However, thousands had lost lives due to engineers who did not carry out their work properly. He asked as to when the state government would take action against such engineers, who took home salaries of lakhs of rupees without doing justice to their job.