BJP MLA meets All India Marathi Literary Meet president Francis Debrito

Senior BJP MLA Ashish Shelar on Sunday called on the 93rd All India Marathi Literary Meet president Fr Francis Debrito in a Mumbai hospital, days after the latter made some critical remarks about the "attacks on students". Shelar tweeted that though he didn't agree with the views of Debrito still he called on the latter.

"This is our culture. We will keep fighting a battle of ideologies," Shelar tweeted. Debrito had on Friday said in his presidential address on the first day of the meet in Osmanabad in Marathwada region that students in this country should not face violence at varsities at any cost.

He had found support in educationist and former president of Marathi literary meet Nagnath Kottapalle who had equated the contemporary government with Hitler's rule in Germany. In an indirect reference to the violence at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, Debrito had said, "we will not sit quiet" if such attacks continued.

"Should students be awarded scholarships, degrees or should they be attacked with sticks? We will not sit quiet if the heads of our students are being smashed. We don't care about the consequences," he had said. On the concluding day of the literary meet on Sunday, 20 resolutions were passed, including starting the Brihanmaharasthra Marathi language departments in other states and taking up developmental works in bordering villages.

The litterateurs also urged that "increasing mob misbehavior" in the society be checked by the Central and Maharashtra governments. A resolution was also passed against the Karnataka government's decision to ban holding Marathi literary meets in that state.

Maharashtra and Karnataka are locked in a border dispute over ownership of Belgavi and other Marathi-speaking villages that fall in the southern state. The gathering also condemned Karnataka Navnirman Sena for threatening Marathi Ekikaran Samiti (MES) members in Karnataka.

They also passed a resolution making the Marathi language compulsory in CBSE and ICSE schools from class I to XII.