5 MLAs suspended from Maharashtra Assembly over Indu Mill protests

Five Members of Legislative Assembly of the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance were on Monday suspended from the Maharashtra Assembly for a day for creating a ruckus on the issue of allotting Indu Mill land for constructing a memorial for Dalit icon B R Ambedkar.

The suspended MLAs are Chandrakant Handore and Prashant Thakur from the Congress and Nawab Malik, Jeetendra Awhad and Shashikant Shinde from the NCP.

Various political parties have been demanding that the mill land in central Mumbai be allotted for constructing a memorial for Ambedkar.

This is the first time that the ruling alliance members have vociferously raised the issue.

The MLAs were suspended after they shouted slogans and waved banners, demanding that the government hand over the land to them for building the memorial.

On December 6, activists of the Republican Sena, led by its leader Anandraj Ambedkar, stormed into the mill premises and installed busts of Ambekar and Gautam Buddha.

It was followed by another violent agitation outside the mill premises last week where supporters of Republican Party of India leader Ramdas Athavale staged a demonstration over the issue.