Who is Dighe’s ‘real shishya’?: The question at the heart of the Sena vs Sena tussle in Thane

Earlier this week, CM Shinde had alleged that Uddhav had eyes on Dighe’s properties soon after his demise.

“When I met Uddhav ji for the first time after Dighe saheb’s demise, he asked me where Anand Dighe had properties,” Shinde had said in a meeting of the Mahayuti workers.

The remarks triggered a war of words between Sena (UBT)’s Rajan Vichare and Shinde led Sena’s Naresh Mhaske, both contesting from the Thane seat.

Hours after the CM’s comments, Vichare, the two-term Thane MP, who is now eying for a third term, took a jibe at Shinde: “You have grown a beard like Dighe sahab, did acting like him but does that make you Anand Dighe? You have to work hard like Dighe saheb did..”

The question of “Dighe’s Real Shishya” has emerged as a major bone of contention in the ongoing campaigning of the two candidates and holds an added import for Thane which was not only Dighe’s citadel but also an integral Sena stronghold. It was here that the Shiv Sena had its first brush with success when in 1967, it made its political debut and won 17 out of 40 seats, becoming the largest single party of the city’s municipal corporation.

In the decades that followed, Sena’s popularity grew in the district and at the heart of its deepening roots lay the man who ruled it with an iron fist — Dighe.

Popular for his brand of populist politics, Dighe, the Sena’s Thane district chief since the 1980s, mentored several budding leaders including both Eknath Shinde and Rajan Vichare.

Dighe was a political mentor to Shinde, helping him win a seat in the Thane Municipal Corporation in 1997. When Shinde drew himself into a cocoon after he lost his children to a drowning accident in 2000, it was Dighe who stood by his side and helped him.

Meanwhile, Vichare also found his political footing under Dighe’s wings.

With Dighe’s home situated right behind his own, Vichare’s association with the Thane strongman began at when he was 16.

“It was because of Dighe and Balasaheb that I entered into politics,” Vichare told The Indian Express.

With Thane slated to go to polls in phase 5, both the factions have adopted the imagery of the city’s “Dharamveer Dighe” in their campaigns across the constituency.

From launching their campaigns by offering prayers to Dighe to invoking his memory at every speech during the course of the ongoing rallies, both Mhaske and Vichare are relying heavily on the goodwill of Dighe’s legacy in Thane.

During the campaigns of both the factions in the city, everything —banners, rally trucks, door-to-door posters, stickers, pamphlets, books, hoardings, social media posts and videos — comes bearing a picture of Dighe, alongside Balasaheb Thackeray’s.

According to political observers, even as Dighe’s legacy does not resonate with the younger generation in Thane, he offers both the factions an added political edge.

On Wednesday, the sitting MP from the Sena UBT faction, Vichare took jibes on Mhaske’s statements — where Mhaske said that Vichare wasn’t Dighe’s real shishya — through political cartoons targetting Shinde on social media. He offered prayers by visiting Dighe’s bust and later posted a video of the visit calling himself, “Dharamveer Anand Dighe sahebancha khara shishya” (true disciple of Anand Dighe).