BOMBAY, 12 July 2006 — Narayan Rane, the former chief of Shiv Sena and now the Congress revenue minister in the Democratic Front government in Maharashtra, has alleged that it was the right-wing Shiv Sena that had orchestrated controversy and desecration of the statue of Meena Thackeray, the wife of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray. “They planned the whole thing as Sena is disintegrating”, said Rane accusing the Sena militants of the desecration. He also dropped another bombshell when he declared that he had reasons to believe that the government and the police had tacitly supported the vandalism on Sunday.
Speculation has been rife in political circles that the NCP, which is an ally in the Congress-led DF government in Maharashtra, was inching closer to the opposition Sena-BJP alliance. Rane also flew to Delhi and called on Congress President Sonia Gandhi to apprise her of the politically sensitive developments in the state and expressed his displeasure over the way the state home department, headed by R. Patil of NCP, had handled the situation with kids’ gloves.
Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister R.R. Patil turned the tables on the Shiv Sena-BJP opposition alliance in the state Legislature Assembly when he stated that the Sena would be embarrassed if he began revealing parts of the investigations into the desecration incident. He asked the Shiv Sena to protect its own statues and reminded the opposition that it was the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance government that had issued a government resolution laying the responsibility of protecting a statue with the concerned organization that had installed the statue and not with the government.
While lambasting the Shiv Sena-BJP opposition, Patil said that if the Meena Thackeray statue was installed by the Sena, then is it not their duty to protect it. The statue is in the jurisdiction of the Bombay Municipal Corporation, which is ruled by Shiv Sena and has 20 guards to protect the mayor’s bungalow. Even if the BMC had posted one of them to guard the statue, the present incident would have not taken place.
The home minister also rebuked the Sena for its outbursts on the Bhiwandi incident and asked that if the Sena feels that using stones for lynching policemen was wrong, why did the Sena militants throw stones at Bombay policemen. Indirectly hinting the involvement of the Shiv Sena in the desecration incident, Patil said that information that would make the Sena repent is slowly coming out.
Advising the Shiv Sena to stop fanning communal passions and turning undeserving people like Abu Azmi into a hero, Patil said that the Sena had used Meena Thackeray’s name for getting votes and now pare her after her death. Don’t hold the entire state to ransom; Patil warned the Sena and BJP leaders.
