Post the pro-Marathi
marchheld on July 8 in M i r a B h a y a n d a r ,
MaharashtraNavnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray is setto visit
Mira Road on July 18, s p a r k i n g p o l i t i c a l - speculation.
While the visit is being called a 'thanks- giving rally,' party insiders a n d p o l i t i c a l observersbelieve that a ma- jor announcement could be made.The
July 8 rally was a r
e s p o n s e t o t h e growingbacklash
over
an al- leged assault by MNS work-ers on a sweet
shop owner who refused to speakMarathi. The
incident triggered protests fromnon- Marathi traders, who ac- cused MNS of lin-guistic
ex-
tremism. In retaliation, the MNS mo-bilized thousands in a counter-march, posi- tion-ing itself
as the de- fender of Marathi identity.
Following the success
of the rally and the over- whelming public
response, R a j T h a c k e r a y i s
nowpersonally stepping into Mira Bhayandar. Sourceswithin MNS con- firm that he will address
the publicat 7:00 p.m. on July
18. M"This will not be just a thank- you speech. Theentire state,
and indeed t h e n a t i o n , w i l l b e
watchingRaj saheb's words closely,"
Sandeep Rane, Presi-dent, MNS Mira B h a y a n d a r u n i t , hinted.There is a confusion
over the ground from
wherethe MNS President will be addressing people.
How-ever, Rane said, “As monsoon season is going on,we are searching the closed Auditorium where
peo-ple can occupy. As soon as we
get it, we will informpeople about it."Political circles are abuzz
with speculation abouta pos- sible alliance between MNS and Uddhav Thac-keray's Shiv Sena, especially
after both leadersshared a stage on July 5 in Mumbai.
With tensions.simmering over lan- guage
politics and state gover-nance, July 18 is ex
