NEW DELHI: Nishikant Dubey defended his “tumko patak patak ke marenge” remark on Friday and said that Mumbai is not only for Marathis, and reiterated his warning to Uddhav and Raj Thackeray. In a podcast with ANI, Dubey recalled that Maharashtra is the highest taxpayer state, but because of the SBI, LIC, and Tata, who opened their headquarters in Mumbai. Earlier this month, Dubey warned opponents that “tumko patak patak ke marenge” (we’ll thrash you thoroughly) while responding to MNS chief Raj Thackeray’s call to target Hindi speakers.Defending his ‘Patak Patak ke Maarenge’ remark, Dubey said, “If you refuse to accept Hindi even as a national language, but you love the English of the British, go ahead. Even in the three-language formula, you have no issue pushing English. So you’ll teach the language of Britain in India, but you have a problem with Hindi? It’s good to have your movements and your causes. But when you physically attack someone in the name of language—especially Hindi—you cross a line.““Let me remind you: Mumbai was once part of Gujarat. It only became part of Maharashtra after the linguistic reorganization in the 1960s. And even now, Marathi speakers make up only about 31–32% of Mumbai’s population. Roughly the same percentage of the population is Hindi-speaking. Around 2% speak Bhojpuri, 12% Gujarati, 3% Telugu, 3% Tamil, 2% Rajasthani, and about 11–12% Urdu speakers. Everyone lives here.” he added. He also said that if they find non-Marathi-speaking people so problematic, then go stand with a stick in front of the SBI Chairman or LIC officials—because many of them don’t know Marathi and ask them to “move all headquarters out of here.” The Marathi advocates usually beat the unarmed, poor people but not like National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange’s chiefs, who are not Marathi.“I am a Member of Parliament. I will not take the law into my hands. But whenever they (Uddhav and Raj) go outside Maharashtra, the people of that state will teach them a lesson. They’ll beat them soundly wherever they go,” Dubey said in the podcast.This all started with three language policy and later the members of UBT and MNS attacked the non-Marathi speaking people in Maharashtra.