Mumbai News: Shiv Sena (Shinde) MLA Sanjay Gaikwad Sparks Outrage With Racist Remark Against South Indians After Assaulting Canteen Staff; VIDEO

Mumbai: The controversial MLA of Shiv Sena (Shinde) Sanjay Gaikwad remarked on Thursday that south Indians do not know how to run restaurants and are good only at conducting ladies' dance bars. This is as absurd as saying Sachin Tendulkar or Virat Kohli do not know how to bat.

Gaikwad shot to notoriety on Wednesday when he slapped an employee of the MLAs' canteen at Churchgate for serving him "stale dal." But, he appears to have been carried away by all the publicity and went on to run down south Indian restaurateurs.

This MLA from Buldhana has exposed his gross ignorance about the hotel scene in Mumbai when he said south Indians do not know how to run restaurants. Many south Indians came to Mumbai even before Independence and set up restaurants which catered not only to the local population but migrants who flocked to the metropolis.

V.S. Mani Iyer travelled all the way from Palakkad in Kerala and opened a vegetarian hotel called Mani's Lunch Home near Ruia College, Matunga, in 1937. The hotel still exists and has a loyal following running into legion. A. Rama Nayak, the portly dhoti-clad cook at Gopalashram in Fort, started a vegetarian meals hotel at Matunga as early as 1942 and got noted freedom fighter Sane Guruji to inaugurate it.

Hundreds of others from Udupi (mostly Shettys) and other parts of south India and made the name Udupi synonymous with clean and reasonably priced food. Today if Mumbaikars do not go hungry it is because of the hundreds of Udupi hotels which are there in every nook and corner of Mumbai.

These hoteliers adapted the food to cater to customers from different parts of the country. Thus you have Shetty-owned hotels selling Punjabi items like tandoor roti, dal makhani, paneer tikka, chole bhature et al for vegetarians and chicken masala, butter chicken etc for non-vegetarians. Many of the fine dine restaurants are owned by south Indians.

Of course, many of them own ladies dance bars, but then there is nothing illegal about them. The Supreme Court has ruled in their favour. They have all the licences in place and the patrons belong to all communities. But the number of dance bars owned by south Indians are far fewer than regular hotels and bars.

Many of the south Indian hoteliers have diversified into real estate and other businesses. For example Sudhakar Shetty of the popular Deepa ladies bar at Irla is today heading a real estate empire.

It appears that Gaikwad has eaten only at the MLAs' canteen and not any of the upteen restaurants owned by south Indians.