Sanjay Raut, a key leader of the Shiv Sena faction led by Uddhav Thackeray, on Wednesday slammed ally Sharad Pawar for felicitating bete noire Eknath Shinde, intensifying the rift in Maharashtra’s Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi.
“Felicitating Shinde is like felicitating Amit Shah,” Raut told reporters in Delhi, a day after Pawar honoured Maharashtra deputy chief minister Shinde, who leads his faction of the Sena, at a cultural event in Delhi.
“They (Shinde and Shah) had joined hands to destroy the party set up by Balasaheb Thackeray and such a man is being felicitated. I think Maharashtra and the Marathi manoos have been grossly insulted,” Raut added, in a first-of-its-kind attack on the veteran leader since they joined hands in 2019.
Shinde, who split the erstwhile Shiv Sena and aligned with the BJP to pull down the Uddhav government in 2022, was honoured with the Mahadji Shinde Rashtriya Gaurav Award in Delhi on Tuesday. Pawar had not only presented the award but also praised Shinde at the event, saying he had contributed “significantly” to the development of Thane, Navi Mumbai and Mumbai.
In his acceptance speech, Shinde heaped praise on Pawar, stressing that he had “good relations” with the veteran leader. “Pawar saheb bowls googlies that are hard to face. But he has not bowled me a googly and I have good relations with him. I am confident that he will not bowl me a googly in the future as well,” Shinde, who was chief minister in the previous Mahayuti government, said.
The open display of bonhomie between Pawar and Shinde angered Uddhav and Raut had given vent to his feelings, Sena sources said.
Pawar, 84, is a highly respected leader in Maharashtra and the Uddhav faction of the Sena had never targeted him in this manner. The outburst indicated that as in the Opposition INDIA bloc at the national level, all was not well in the Maha Vikas Aghadi too. The Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and the NCP (SP) make up
the Aghadi.
“It is true that in politics there are no permanent friends or enemies. But honouring someone who has harmed Maharashtra and whom we consider enemies of the state is an insult to Maharashtra’s pride and self-respect,” Raut said, stressing that “Pawar saheb has let Maharashtra down”.
Even as Pawar maintained silence on the attack, his party MP Amol Kolhe sought to downplay the issue, underlining that politics should not be read into a cultural event. “Pawar saheb showed statesmanship. He is the president of the committee (which felicitated Shinde) and there is nothing wrong with what he did. Politics should not be brought into everything,” Kolhe told reporters.
Raut, however, lashed out at the committee, the All India Marathi Literature Conference, and the award given by it to Shinde. “Such awards given to political leaders are bought and sold,” he alleged.
There is a churning in Maharashtra politics since the Mahayuti returned to power with a landslide victory in the 2024 polls and the BJP managed to wrest the chief minister’s chair from the Shiv Sena faction led by Shinde. There was a call for a merger of the two factions of the NCP — one led by the senior Pawar and the other by his nephew Ajit. This was followed by the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the NCP (SP) heaping praise on chief minister Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP.
