Anand Dighe’s nephew to face CM Shinde in Panchpakhadi

Kedar Dighe has been made a bali ka bakra. He is like a small fish that has been released in a sea where a big fish like the CM rules : Maske

MUMBAI: The Panchpakhadi area of Thane will witness an interesting duel, with Shiv Sena (UBT) fielding Kedar Dighe opposite chief minister Eknath Shinde from here. Kedar Dighe, who chose to stay with Thackeray when Shinde split Shiv Sena in 2022, is the nephew of Shinde’s mentor late Anand Dighe.

Anand Dighe’s nephew to face CM Shinde in Panchpakhadi

Kedar had expressed an interest in contesting the Lok Sabha polls against the CM’s son Shrikant Shinde from the Kalyan parliamentary constituency. After the party’s announcement on Wednesday, he said, “This time I wanted to contest from Thane city or Panchpakhadi. The party has now given me a ticket.”

“Every fight is a tough one. I will do everything to win this. People are fed up of politics that involves breaking of parties. My voters want change. The government is bringing new schemes which are temporary in nature. No one is bothered about the state,” said Dighe.

Referring to two films, ‘Dharmaveer’ and ‘Dharmaveer 2’, which managed to boost Shinde’s equity, as they depicted him as Dighe’s sole successor, he objected to the way the CM used his uncle’s name to “promote himself”.

“In fact, many things shown in the two movies, brought out by Shinde, are not true,” he said, adding he will not use any family member to campaign for him, as he is averse to “playing on people’s sentiments”.

Shinde has been an MLA since 2004 and almost the entire unit of Shiv Sena aligned with him when he rebelled. In the Lok Sabha polls, Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate Rajan Vichare found it hard to find adequate resources to support him.

Since that time, the CM has rolled out several infra schemes and pumped in funds to shine up Thane, where he shaped his political career.

As the chief of the party, when he starts spending much time touring the state in the following weeks, MP Naresh Mhaske will look into day-to-day campaigns.

On Sena (UBT)’s recent move, Maske said, “Kedar Dighe has been made a bali ka bakra. He is like a small fish that has been released in a sea where a big fish like the CM rules. Sena (UBT) would have been better off with giving the candidature to Aaditya Thackeray or Sanjay Raut. Kedar Dighe is not a direct relative of Anand Dighe; he is only using the Dighe surname. (He is Anand Dighe’s cousin’s son.) He is not even a resident of Thane and lives in Mulund.’’