PUNE: In a shocking incident, a man threw ink at Maharashtra cabinet minister Chandrakant Patil in Pimpri Chinchwad city, Pune district, in response to Patil's alleged remark on Dr BR Ambedkar and Mahatma Jyotiba Phule. A video of the incident shows a man approaching Patil and throwing ink at his face as the minister exits a building. In a statement to the media following the incident, Patil said he had been distributing certificates at a university in Paithan, Devgiri district, to celebrate the completion of a course. He added that the university had requested additional funds, to which he responded that the government would provide them but that the university should also try to collect funds from other sources. He mentioned Ambedkar and Phule as examples of individuals who started schools without waiting for government financial aid.


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Patil said that in his statement, he had used the word "bheek," which means "beg" in Hindi, but that he did not mean to criticize either Ambedkar or Phule. He explained that in rural areas, the word "bheek" is used to mean "to plead" or "to request" and that it does not necessarily have a negative connotation.


He said, "I come from `dehat` (rural area), they have a problem with it. In `dehat`, even a mother says (to her child) after your father`s death I begged to raise you. Does it mean she was standing with a begging bowl? When someone goes to the court and pleads to the judge for justice and says "I beg for Justice", is it wrong? Is `bheek` the wrong word?"


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He also said that Ambedkar and Phule had not sought government grants to start their schools, and that he was only suggesting that others should do the same. He said that he did not understand what he had said wrong, and that the ink attack had not affected him.



 


The Maharashtra minister appealed to his party workers not to take the law into their own hands while protesting and asked them to protest democratically. He also urged the deputy chief minister and the chief minister not to take any action against police personnel and not to suspend them. He said that the accused had been detained and that the police were doing their job. Earlier in the week, Patil had said that Ambedkar and Phule had 'begged' to start schools. The BJP condemned the ink attack. The deputy chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, said that the meaning of Patil's statement should have been understood.


(With agency inputs)