The Shiv Sena has defended senior party leader and Transport Minister Diwakar Raote's recent announcement that new autorickshaw permits will be issued only to drivers who speak Marathi, saying it was an old law which he had sought just to apply.

The party also tried to link the issue with the upcoming Bihar Assembly polls as it charged that 'those who have sidelined development and are harping on the auto permits issue are responsible for making Bihar a backward state'. "There is no need for us to give figures of how many of the auto and taxi drivers in Mumbai are Marathi and how many are outsiders. Nobody has issued 'fatwa' (diktat) that those who are outsiders should leave," Sena said in an editorial in its mouthpiece, 'Saamana'.