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Sena’s man of the moment Raut says mission accomplished
After being the face and voice of the Shiv Sena for almost a month, leader Sanjay Raut on Wednesday said “his mission was accomplished” and he would now go back
After being the face and voice of the Shiv Sena for almost a month, leader Sanjay Raut on Wednesday said “his mission was accomplished” and he would now go back to “fulfilling his duty in the upper House of Parliament”.
With the rotational chief minister’s post leading to a divide between the Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the days of impasse used to begin with Raut’s acerbic editorials and later his press conferences, where he used to outline his party’s views on the political developments.
Soon, the 58-year-old, who holds the rank of ‘leader’ in Sena’s hierarchy, turned out to be the “man of the match” and “Chanakya”, as he stitched together an alliance with the Congress and NCP by holding back-channel talks with NCP chief Sharad Pawar. But he prefers to be called a “Shiv Sena warrior”.
“I had said that our Suryayaan will land on the sixth floor of Mantralaya (chief minister’s office). Then, people laughed it off. Now our Suryayaan has landed safely. You should not be surprised if it lands in Delhi in the times to come,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
The Rajya Sabha MP with a penchant for writing was attracted to the Shiv Sena’s ideology since his early years. Raut started writing for Sena founder Bal Thackeray’s Marmik, which was the party’s mouthpiece till Saamana was launched in 1988, during his college days. He is currently the executive editor of Saamana, and pens editorials every day.
Prabhakar Pawar, a close friend of Raut since their days at a weekly magazine, Lok Prabha, said that Raut started working at the marketing department of a national daily and was inducted into Lok Prabha on the recommendation of Bal Thackeray. “He had an aggressive streak since the beginning and was a workaholic. He would even work on Sundays. He has a habit of writing daily, and he still writes his articles or editorials. He doesn’t use a computer,” said Pawar.
According to party insiders, Raut— a staunch Shiv Sainik— was wary of the BJP leadership post 2014. The ties between the Sena and BJP were frosty since the 2014 Assembly polls. The two parties snapped their alliance and went solo in the state polls. Although the Sena joined the government, Raut continued to attack the BJP’s policies through editorials and his weekly column in Saamana. For Shiv Sainiks, the words in the editorials are akin to party chief’s ‘aadesh’ or diktat.
Raut constantly attacked the Central and BJP-led state governments on its policies. “The BJP leadership intended to finish regional parties, even their allies, which was visible in their behaviour with us. It is not a secret that Rautji was against the alliance with the BJP. He wanted the Shiv Sena to go solo,” said a senior party functionary .
The 2019 election verdict gave the Sena an opportunity to make its demand for the top post in the government and not budge from it. After the BJP refused to part with the post, Raut used his ties with Pawar to form the alliance.
When Pawar was served a notice by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) before the state Assembly elections, Raut, through Saamana, backed Pawar against “vendetta” politics. Uddhav Thackeray, too, publicly said such politics was not “acceptable” in Maharashtra.
The executive editor, who was close to the Thackerays, catapulted to New Delhi as a Rajya Sabha MP in 2004. The three-term lawmaker in the upper House of Parliament was a backroom person until then. He is now at the centrestage of the political development designed by him to “fulfil the dream” of the Sena founder.
Raut, according to his friend Pawar, was close to Bal Thackeray’s brother Shrikant, which led to his friendship with Raj Thackeray, Uddhav’s estranged cousin who quit the party in 2005. It was speculated that Raut would back Raj. Instead, he continued to support Uddhav and used editorials in Saamana to keep the Marathi manoos close to the Shiv Sena, and not Raj’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.
As Uddhav Thackeray is set to be sworn in as the chief minister, Raut said he would not hold his morning press conferences now. “I told Uddhav Thackeray now my responsibility is over. Sharad Pawar said to me that “you and I have no work here from tomorrow onwards.”
