Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray criticised the move in a post on X, writing: “The decision to conduct a Hindi language proficiency examination for officers and employees serving in the Maharashtra government is beyond comprehension. Maharashtra’s identity is linked to the Marathi language and culture. The question arises: whose interests are being served by this attempt to impose Hindi on state employees? Maharashtra will not accept this double standard of granting classical language status to Marathi while simultaneously imposing Hindi.”
Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) also issued an open warning to the Fadnavis government, saying that if the examination was conducted, the government would have to bear responsibility for any situation arising in the state.
Dr Deepak Pawar, president of the Marathi Abhyas Kendra, also criticised the move. He questioned the rationale behind testing employees’ Hindi proficiency when administrative communication in the state is already conducted in Marathi.
“Hindi is neither Maharashtra’s official language nor essential for day-to-day administration,” he argued, while also questioning whether similar examinations existed in non-Hindi-speaking states such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka or Gujarat.
Calling the move unnecessary, Pawar alleged that it weakened Marathi and amounted to a waste of administrative resources. He demanded that the examination be scrapped altogether.
Amid the growing backlash, industries and Marathi language minister Uday Samant from the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction announced on Wednesday, 6 May that the examination had been cancelled for now.
“I discussed the matter with the department’s principal secretary, after which it was decided to postpone the examination. We will examine whether the Hindi examination is necessary in future. If it is not required, we will decide against conducting it,” Samant said.
He added that the examination had been conducted annually under the 1976 rules, but the government would now review whether those rules remained relevant in 2026 before taking any further decision.
