Mumbai: Maharashtra's Deputy Speaker and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Narhari Zirwal has been admitted to JJ Hospital due to an injury to his neck after he jumped from the seventh floor onto the third-floor safety net at the state secretariat building, Mantralaya on Friday, sources said. Senior BJP leader and Minister for Rural Development Girish Mahajan also met Zirwal after his protest jump and before hospitalisation. Zirwal is in stable condition.
On Friday noon, a group of MLAs from tribal community led by Dy Speaker Zirwal jumped onto the third-floor safety net from the seventh floor at the Mantralaya amid their protest against granting Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to Dhangar community and government’s apathy towards the issues raised by tribal people.
Other MLAs who jumped onto safety net at Mantralaya along with Zirwal were Kiran Lahamate of the NCP, Rajesh Patil of the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA), Hiraman Khoskar of Congress and Hemant Savra from BJP.
Soon after the MLAs jumped on the safety net, which was installed in 2018 to prevent suicide attempts at the Mantralaya, the police reached the spot immediately and removed the protesting leaders from the net safely.
Zirwal and other ST leaders have been protesting mainly against inclusion of Dhangars in the Scheduled Tribe list. Zirwal, a leader from NCP-led by Ajit Pawar, had gone to state guest house, Sahyadri to meet the chief minister. However, he was made to wait for hours. On Friday, too Zirwal and other tribal MLAs could not meet the CM and DyCM after which they decided to jump into a protest, reports say. The act came at the time cabinet meeting was in process.
