Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday told the state Assembly that he was willing to become a martyr to save the Shiv Sena, but was disturbed by the way he was treated during the state election in 2019, The Indian Express reported.
Shinde addressed the Assembly shortly after winning a trust vote that cemented his position as the Maharashtra chief minister. He took oath as chief minister on June 30 after leading a rebellion of Shiv Sena MLAs against the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi government.
The chief minister said that his predecessor Uddhav Thackeray should introspect on why such a big rebellion took place in the party.
“At one hand, you sent people to meet me and have a dialogue, but on the other hand, [Shiv Sena workers] abused me and threw stones at my house,” he said. “They compared us with animals, abused us and called us living corpse.”
The chief minister was referring to a comment by Shiv Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut describing MLAs from his faction as living corpses. “There is a temple in Guwahati where buffaloes are sacrificed,” Raut had said. “These 40 buffaloes have gone there to be sacrificed.”
Shinde said that during the tenure of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, the Shiv Sena could not take action against “those who allied with Dawood Ibrahim” and could not praise Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar.
He appeared to have been referring to the Enforcement Directorate’s allegation that jailed Nationalist Congress Party leader Nawab Malik funded a terror network of Ibrahim’s sister Haseena Parkar.
Shinde said that development and Hindutva will on the agenda of his government. “We were Shiv Sainiks, we are Shiv Sainiks and will continue to be Shiv Sainiks,” he asserted.
‘Could not give time to family’, says CM
During his speech, Shinde broke into tears while talking about his family members and said that he could not give time to them, NDTV reported.
“My father is alive, my mother died,” the chief minister said. “I could not give much time to my parents. They would be asleep when I came and would go to work when I slept. I could not give much time to my son Shrikant.”
Shinde also recalled the deaths of his children Dipesh and Shubhada in a boat accident in the Satara district in 2000. “At the time, [Shiv Sena leader from Thane] Anand Dighe consoled me,” he said. “I used to think, what is there to live for? I will stay with my family.”
The chief minister said that Dighe told him to wipe his own tears and those of others as well. “He helped me recover and made me leader of the Shiv Sena in the assembly,” he said.
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