Pune: Escalating his confrontation with the state government on the toll issue, MNS chief Raj Thackeray on Sunday announced a statewide "rasta roko" agitation on February 12 to press for abolition of the levy and dared the government to arrest him.
Raj, who is facing multiple cases for instigating his party cadres to vandalise toll booths on various highways a few days back, said he was determined to continue his stir until the government has made collection of road tax "transparent".
"My meeting with chief minister Prithviraj Chavan to resolve the (toll) issue has proved futile. I am left with no option but to continue my agitation against the collection of toll and to side with the anger of people against the unjustified road tax," Raj said addressing the rally at S P College ground here.
He also criticised the "lax" Home department over the law and order issue in Maharashtra.
Taking a dig at Shiv Sena for criticising his ongoing agitation, the MNS chief said," I wonder whether that party was part of the ruling coalition or belonged to the opposition".
Addressing the meeting, Raje said that it was the first government after independence which has taken the initiative to reach out to people at the local level to solve their problems.
She said, during `Suraj Sankalp Yatra` before the Assembly election, she had seen how people were being neglected by the former government so, she had decided "to take the government to people".
Raje has formed four groups of ministers, and each group of ministers would visit one district out of four in Bharatpur division and conduct public hearing.
Gulab Chand Kataria, Hem Singh and Kalicharan will tour Bharatpur, S L Jat, Gajendra Singh and Ajay Singh will be in Karauli while Dholpur will be covered by Rajendra Rathore and Arun Chaturvedi, and Nand Lal, Yunus Khan and Prabhu Lal will visit Sawai Madhopur on February 10,11 and 12 and conduct `Jansunwai` on February 13.
The ministers will review the programmes and schemes run by their departments on February 14, 15 and 16.
Chief Secretary Rajiv Mehirshi said that issues related with water, power, road, health and education of the division would be taken on priority.
Region specific schemes would also be reviewed by the government during this special visit.
