The Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) on Sunday distanced itself from remarks made by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on defeating “Hindi imposition”, clarifying that the party is not against the language.

“Our stand is that the strictness for Hindi in primary schools will not be tolerated,” Uddhav Sena MP Sanjay Raut said. “Our fight is limited to this”.

Raut added that the stand of southern states against Hindi imposition is that they “will neither speak the language nor allow anyone else to speak it” there.

“But that is not our stand in Maharashtra,” he said. “We speak Hindi…We haven’t stopped anyone from speaking in Hindi because we have Hindi movies, Hindi theatre and Hindi music.”

On Saturday, Stalin said that Tamil Nadu’s “language rights struggle, waged generation after generation” against Hindi imposition had now transcended state boundaries and had stirred a protest in Maharashtra.

The Tamil Nadu chief minister’s statement came hours after a “victory rally” was held in Mumbai by Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and his cousin Raj Thackeray, the leader of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, to celebrate the state government’s decision to withdraw its policy of teaching Hindi as a third language in primary schools.

According to the order, if 20 students per grade in a school wish to study any other Indian language, they can opt out of Hindi. If such a demand arises, either a teacher will be appointed or the language will be taught online.

Following backlash, the government had on June 29 withdrew the resolution on three language policy.

Stalin had said that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Maharashtra government had been forced to withdraw the policy because of the fear of “people’s uprising”.

On Sunday, Raut responded to Stalin’s remark, saying: “Stalin congratulated us on this win and said he would learn from it. We wish him the best.”

“But our fight is only against the imposition of Hindi in primary education,” Raut added.

‘If not in Maharashtra, where else Marathi’

The Uddhav Sena MP also condemned Maharashtra minister and BJP leader Ashish Shelar’s statement comparing the recent cases of assault on non-Marathi speakers in the state and the terror attack in Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which left 26 persons dead, the Hindustan Times reported.

“If people do a movement for any language, Ashish Shelar compares them to terrorists of Pahalgam,” ANI quoted Raut as saying. “It’s wrong, and it shows the BJP’s mindset.”

He added: “A few people refuse to accept the culture and the Marathi language. If not in Maharashtra, where would the Marathi language be…in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Nepal?”

On Sunday, Shelar said that the tourists in Pahalgam were targeted for being Hindu and the same was happening in Maharashtra over language.

“In Pahalgam, people were killed because of their religion,” PTI quoted Shelar as saying at a press conference in Mumbai. “Here in Maharashtra, Hindus are being assaulted only because of the language they speak. What’s the difference?”

Shelar’s remarks came a week after seven unidentified persons, believed to be members of the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, assaulted a shopkeeper in Thane district for not speaking in Marathi.

On Saturday, suspected workers of the party vandalised the Mumbai office of entrepreneur Sushil Kedia, a day after he posted on social media that he had lived in the city for 30 years without learning Marathi “properly”.