Amid the ongoing political turmoil in Maharashtra, rebel MLA Sanjay Shirsat penned a scathing letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, stating that Eknath Shinde went against the party only because several MLAs persuaded him to do so after facing "humiliation" at the hands of the CM's "middlemen." The letter was also tweeted by Shinde.
Here is the full, translated text of the letter to the chief minister:
I am writing this letter as an ode to Hindu Hridaysamrat Shri Balasaheb Thackeray. The doors to CM's official residence Barsgha opened in the true sense last evening for the common Shiv Sainiks. These doors were closed for the past two and a half years for us, even as MLAs. In order to reach to you, we had to constantly appease your middlemen, who have not even been chosen by the people of the state as their representatives.
The middleman bypass us to chalk out strategies for the Assembly and Rajya Sabha elections, the results of which are before the whole of Maharashtra. Despite being MLAs of the Shiv Sena, we never got direct entry into 'Varsha'. The chief minsters of the state meet party workers on the 6th floor of the Matralaya, but we could never meet you there since you never went there.
For developments related to our constituencies, personal crisis, and other problems, appointments would be granted only after multiple requests, and we would be called to the official bungalow eventually via your middlemen, but we would be made to stand at the gate for hours. The middlemen would stop taking our calls once we were there and we would have to leave without meeting you.
Why were your own party MLAs humiliated after being elected by 3-4 lakh of your loyal voters?
We went through all this suffering. The middlemen near you never cared for our complaints. Moreover, they didn't even let the complaints reach you. However, Honourable Eknath Shinde's door was always open to us. The bad condition of our constituencies, funds, bureaucracy, the insults from Congress NCP... Only Shinde Saheb was listening to our complaints and finding a positive way out. Therefore, for the just demands of all the MLAs and on their insistence, we asked Shinde Saheb to take this decision.
Shinde Saheb immediately told us that Saheb had called to not let MLAs go to Ayodhya. We collected our checked-in luggage from the Mumbai airport and returned home. Not a single vote broke at the time of the Rajya Sabha election. Then why did you show such distrust towards us at the time of Vidhan Parishad elections? Why did you not let us take a darshan of Ramlalla?
Saheb, when we were not getting entry to Varsha, Congress NCP people were meeting you daily, were doing the work for their constituency, were brandishing letters of having got funds, were doing bhumi pujans and inaugurations, and were posting photos with you on social media. Then, the people in our constituencies would ask us – if the CM is ours, then how are our opponents getting the funds?
How was their work getting done? We would be uneasy with the thought that we have to face our voters without you ever meeting us. In difficult circumstances like these, Eknath Shinde, who is the true follower of Bal Thackeray and Dharamveer Anand Dighe, would come to our rescue. We are standing by him today because his doors were always open for us, and we believe that they will be open in the future.
Your address yesterday was emotional, but it had no answers to our basic questions. Hence, I had to pen this letter to apprise you of our feelings.
Regards,
Sanjay Shirsat
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