Mumbai, Aug 28 (IANS): With political temperature coming to a boil amid pouring rain in Sindhudurg, the top leaders of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) on Wednesday announced a fresh protest in Mumbai on Sunday to target the MahaYuti government over the collapse of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s statue at Rajkot Fort in Sindhudurg.

While the MVA and MahaYuti leaders and activists are engaged in a war of words over the incident in Malvan town of Sindhudurg, Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole, Nationalist Congress Party (SP) supremo Sharad Pawar, and Shiv Sena (UBT) Chief Uddhav Thackeray hurriedly held a joint media briefing here on Wednesday.

The three leaders slammed the MahaYuti government, accusing it of “gross corruption” in the statue construction leading to its fall on Monday, adding that the ruling regime is now blaming the Indian Navy for the crash.

The opposition leaders said they will organise a protest demonstration near the Martyrs Memorial in Mumbai on Sunday and then pay respect to the statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj at Gateway of India.

Ridiculing Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s claims that wind speeds of 45 knots that lashed Malvan may have led to the crash of the Chhatrapati statue, the three leaders said when all other statues, monuments and buildings withstood the so-called gales, only the Chhatrapati's statue collapsed as there was corruption in the project.

After the protest on Sunday, from September 2 onwards, the MVA would organise agitations all over the state to highlight the 'lapses' of the ‘commission seeker’ MahaYuti government in the run-up to the Assembly elections due later this year.

“Besides the statue incident and huge corruption in the MahaYuti regime, we shall also raise the question of women’s safety given the spate of atrocities and sexual violence targeting our mothers, sisters and daughters. The government has failed on all counts,” Thackeray said.

He also alleged that the MahaYuti partners -- Shiv Sena, BJP, and NCP -- who claim to be ‘Shiv premis’ (Shiv devotees), are actually ‘Shiv drohis’ (Shiv traitors) and must be thrown out in the upcoming elections.

Pointing out that monuments, forts, statues that are many decades and centuries old have stood the test of time, Pawar and Patole called upon all the admirers and followers of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj to participate in the agitation on Sunday in large numbers to express their angst against the MahaYuti government that has failed on all fronts.