Kirit Somaiya was used as a political weapon against the Shiv Sena at a point in time. Then the pushback from Shiv Sena happened, which is continuing
In the last couple of weeks, two redoubtables of Maharashtra politics have fenced in a toxic and very public showdown. BJP leader Kirit Somaiya and Shiv Sena’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut have been trading recriminations and rebukes for the past five years, but this time around the volleys are vicious.
In a fresh bout of sabre-rattling, Mumbai Police is to investigate a criminal syndicate and extortion racket by a nexus of Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials. “Mark my words, some of these ED officers will go to jail too,” Sanjay Raut told the media on 8 March.
This comes on a day the IT department is conducting search operations at the office and residence of close aides of Shiv Sena leaders and Maharashtra ministers Aaditya Thackeray and Anil Parab.
The department had recently conducted raids at the offices and premises of various BMC contactors and Shiv Sena leaders. Raut called it a ploy by the Centre to pressurise and destabilise the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra government.
This acerbic slugfest hides more than it reveals. And has its roots in a series of events set in motion a couple of decades ago.
It all began when Kirit Somaiya, a chartered accountant by profession, a big cheese of Maharashtra politics, in the late 1990s, turned into a…