‘Sanjay Raut out to finish-off Shiv Sena on orders of NCP chief Sharad Pawar,’ alleges rebel Sena faction leader Deepak Kesarkar

Rebel Sena MLA Deepak Kesarkar plays emotional card, asks, Should the Shiv Sena forgo all self-esteem to please Sharad Pawar and Sonia Gandhi?

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Mumbai: Vehemently denying they had staged a ‘rebellion’, claiming that they were still the real Shiv Sena, the rebel Sena MLAs led by Minister Eknath Shinde currently holing out in Assam on Monday launched a scathing attack on Sena MP Sanjay Raut, accusing him of trying to finish-off the party allegedly on the orders of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar. The rebel Shinde camp argued that they were fighting for the preservation of the party’s “self-esteem.”  

In a hard-hitting open letter posted on Twitter, rebel Sena MLA Deepak Kesarkar, who was the Guardian Minister of Sindhudurg district, said that it was only because of the vitriol spewed on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi by Sanjay Raut that the rift between the two parties had widened. 

Kesarkar in his open letter remarked, “It is unfortunate that the party is being run on Sanjay Raut’s advice…a person who has not been elected by the people is set-out to finish off the party. You may distance us from the BJP. But if you distance the Shiv Sena from ‘Hindutva’, then how do you expect us to tolerate this?” 

With the majority of the 55 Sena MLAs siding with Eknath Shinde, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena faction on Monday had launched a counter-offensive against the rebel MLAs. 

Sanjay Raut vented his ire on the Shinde camp, calling them ‘living corpses’ who would be sent to a mortuary for post-mortem on their return from the Assamese capital of Guwahati. 

The Sena Rajya Sabha MP’s controversial statement provoked Kesarkar into penning the open letter, which squarely blamed Sanjay Raut for compelling the MLAs to take such a step while labelling him as the NCP’s ‘blue-eyed boy’. 

Kesarkar further said, “Sanjay Raut has committed the heinous crime of distancing (Chief Minister and Sena president) Uddhav Thackeray from us…the NCP fires the gun from his shoulder and who does the bullet hit – not enemies of our party but party loyalists like us. This is not acceptable.”

He added that the alliance of the BJP and the Sena (‘Yuti’) was in line with the verdict given by the people of Maharashtra. Kesarkar wanted to know whether the Sena ought to let go of all its self-esteem to merely “please Sharad Pawar and Sonia Gandhi?” 

The rebel Sena MLA further questioned, “How can we defend a Minister who was ties to Dawood Ibrahim (NCP’s Nawab Malik)? Even during the recent Rajya Sabha elections, the NCP defeated the Sena’s candidate.” Kesarkar pointed out that during the Parliamentary debate on the abolition of Article 370, Shiv Sena leaders were not able to speak openly due to their alliance with the Congress and NCP in the State. 

Kesarkar further said that Sanjay Raut today could sit in the Rajya Sabha only because of the support of all Sena MLAs. “And now, he wishes for our dead bodies… in the last few days, we are being branded as villains,” remarked Kesarkar. 

He added that ties between the Sena and the BJP in 2014 were severed only because of the party’s leadership’s refusal to let go of four seats. 

Kesarkar argued further, “it was because of the efforts of Narendra Modi and Uddhav Thackeray, we won 18 MPs in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. We were ready to contest together in the 2014 Assembly election as well. At that time, Aaditya Thackeray had given the slogan for ‘Mission 151+’.”

The Sena rebel MLA stated that while the BJP had initially promised 140 seats, they eventually agreed to let the Sena have 147 seats while they themselves contested on 127. However, the Sena leadership remained intransigent on its demand for four more seats which led to the split in the alliance, alleged Deepak Kesarkar.  

Kesarkar further remarked that when the two parties eventually got together, Sanjay Raut began hurling his venomous barbs (during the BJP-Sena alliance from 2014-19) and using language and cheap criticism that was not used even by the opposition parties like the Congress and the NCP and others in the country. 

The rebel Sena MLA further said that despite the widening gulf between the BJP and the Sena due to Sanjay Raut being brought to the notice of the party leadership, nothing was done about it. 

“While the BJP was increasing in strength under Modi leadership, even the Sena was constantly trying to grow. The outcome was that due to two similarly ideological parties growing Hindutva was gaining strength…Balasaheb’s (late Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray) basic mantra was that focusing on Hindutva was above alliances,” remarked Deepak Kesarkar.  

He further said that just when the government formation (between the BJP and the Sena after 2019 Assembly elections) remained a mere formality, Sanjay Raut allegedly became active on the advice of the ‘strong NCP leader’ (read Sharad Pawar). 

Alleging that a very systematic effort was made to demolish all that the Shiv Sena stood for, the rebel Sena MLA questioned the rationale for the ideologically opposed Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government. “What kind of power is it, when one is on a path of self-destruction? What is the point of being in power, if Shiv Sena will cease to exist?” asked Kesarkar.