MUMBAI: While the controversy over BJP MLA Akash Vijayvargiya assaulting government officials with a bat in Madhya Pradesh is yet to die down, another VIP’s son and Congress MLA in Maharashtra Nitesh Rane was caught on camera throwing muddy water on an engineer as a punishment for shabby road widening work.
Nitesh and 16 of his supporters were later arrested for attacking the deputy engineer of the public works department, Prakash Shedekar. The incident took place on Thursday morning when Rane, MLA from Kankawli in Sindhudurg, was inspecting the road-widening work done on the Mumbai-Goa highway near the Kankawli town. Annoyed to see mud on the road and the absence of service roads, he summoned the engineer responsible and ‘punished’ him.
The video shows a visibly angry Rane shouting at the engineer, saying, “You are only in a hurry to construct pillars. Who will construct the gutters? How will the water flow? How can you be so careless?”
Rane is also seen threatening the engineer. “Shall I show you how we get dirty in the mud? You are wearing clean clothes, you came in an air-conditioned car and we are here in dirt.”
The video then shows Rane pointing at the mud and telling his supporters, “Throw this on his head… Now do you understand? Now I will show you. I will take you in my car and throw you in the mud.” The gathered crowd then tied the engineer to the bridge. As a video of the ‘instant punishment’ went viral, the state government was forced to take immediate action and the MLA and his supporters were booked.
Nitesh is son of former Maharashtra chief minister Narayan Rane, who is the BJP’s associate member in the Rajya Sabha. Narayan Rane apologised for his son’s behaviour. “I had told him that it is wrong. We will apologise to the government official,” Rane told media persons in Delhi. He also tried to put the blame on his son’s associates.
However, this kind of behaviour is not new to Nitesh. In 2017 he had thrown a bucketful of dead fish at an official in Sindhudurg during a meeting called to discuss problems faced by the fishermen in the Konkan region.