An altercation occurred outside the Maharashtra Assembly on Wednesday, 24 August, between Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena faction and members of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
NCP MLAs carried carrots and raised slogans on the steps of the Assembly, opposing the state government.
When the Shinde faction tried to snatch the carrots, a scuffle broke out between them, during which Sena MLA Mahesh Shinde and the NCP's Amol Mitkari virtually came to blows.
Some MLAs then intervened in the fight and diffused the rising tensions.
Shinde Faction Alleges Corruption in BMC
Earlier, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders staged a protest along with members of the Shinde faction against former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and his son Aaditya Thackeray, alleging corruption in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
They also carried banners that said, "The Raja (king) stayed indoors due to the fear of COVID-19, while the friends of the yuvraj (prince) looted the treasury."
A Shinde camp MLA named Bharat Gogawale said that the members of the Opposition should not have come near them when the protest was ongoing.
"They started arguing first. When they protested all these days, we did not interfere," Gogawale said, as per news agency PTI.
NCP leader Supriya Sule, however, addressed Home Minister Amit Shah and said that members of the Shinde faction were trying to "intimidate" the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) MLAs.
"Home Minister Amit Shah ji, MLAs of the Shinde faction are trying to intimidate them by making violent statements about MVA MLAs in public in Maharashtra's Vidhan Bhavan premises," she said in a tweet.
Members of both the groups continued to raise slogans against each other for a while before entering the Assembly for the day's proceedings.
The Maharashtra Assembly's Monsoon Session is scheduled to conclude on Thursday, 25 August.
(With inputs from PTI.)
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