Heckling ‘pre-planned’, says Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan

Mumbai: Maintaining his being heckled at an event in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was "pre-planned at a high level", Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said he will not attend such functions in future till he got an assurance that incidents like those will not recur.

"All this would not have happened unless decided at a high level. He (Modi) will have to show how to behave with Chief Ministers at such events where CM is from opposition party. Before I attend such functions, we should get an assurance at the highest level that there won't be a recurrence," Chavan said on Saturday.

Chavan was booed at a function at Solapur last Saturday where he had to stop his speech midway amid repeated chants of "Modi! Modi!". He had refused to attend a function in Nagpur with Modi on Thursday where the Prime Minister launched several infrastructure projects including a metro rail for the state's second capital.

"I did not go to Nagpur because of the planned manner in which speeches of chief ministers were disrupted (at PM's functions). Had it been a one-off incident, I would have understood. But the same thing was done in case of Haryana and Jharkhand chief ministers," he said.

Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar also criticised the manner in which Chavan's speech was disrupted at Solapur by alleged Modi supporters.

"Now we are seeing a new trend. The PM goes to public functions in various states and some people from the crowd get up and ask the CM to stop his speech. Should such things happen?" Pawar said.

Goa's BJP Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who was in the city for an event, also disapproved of heckling of opposition chief ministers.

"First of all, it is not right to indulge in such hooting of anyone. But it is not Modiji or anyone else who does it deliberately. This public reaction (hooting) is coming for people who haven't done well (for the masses) but such reaction should not come," Parrikar said.

Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray said no chief minister should be insulted but deprecated attempts to derive political mileage out of such incidents.

"No one should insult a chief minister under any circumstance but no one should make political capital out of this either," he said.