Joshi confirms Sena’s worst kept secret

It’s the first public admission by a senior Sena leader that the Thackeray cousins have been warring. Before this, the feud was always portrayed as a fanciful media creation.

It’s all there in Speaker’s Diary, Joshi’s first publication. Written in Marathi, it’s a brief day-to-day account of Joshi’s life from May 10, 2002 — when he became speaker — to May 9, 2003. It was published in Mumbai on June 9.

‘‘My meeting with Thackeray did not yield any result. I decided to continue my efforts since there are no shortcuts to success,’’ Joshi says of his attempts to broker peace between the warring juniors in Mumbai’s most powerful family.

The preface to the diary is written by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who has revealed that he had failed to write a single page of his own diary in the last five years after becoming prime minister.

The diary is not just about Joshi’s job as the presiding officer of the Lok Sabha. It has interesting tit-bits about his interaction with Thackeray, other Sena leaders and his experience while running the Lok Sabha.

There are also a few passing references that could create a bit of a stir. He talks of a London-based industrialist and his political connections.

Interestingly, speaking to the media a week ago, Thackeray alleged that the decision on conditional access system had been taken to favour an industrialist in London who was engaged in selling set-top boxes.

An equally interesting disclosure is that Thackeray had decided to sack Union Minister for Heavy Industries Balasaheb Vikhe-Patil a good five months before he was actually asked to put in the papers.

According to Joshi, Thackeray was upset with Vikhe-Patil — the reasons are not mentioned in the diary, it isn’t that frank — and had on December 28 asked him to submit his resignation.

On December 28, 2002, when Joshi was returning from Dhule after attending a function, Thackeray called him on phone and asked to reach Matoshree (Sena chief’s residence in Mumbai’s Bandra) along with Vikhe-Patil since he had decided to sack the Ahmednagar MP from the Union cabinet.

‘‘For us, the Sena Pramukh’s word is like a Government Resolution. It is not meant for discussion,’’comments Joshi.

Vikhe-Patil could not reach Thackeray’s residence on that day although Joshi called him immediately. He saw Thackeray on the next day but could not stop his exit from the Union cabinet.

Eventually, he was dropped on May 23,2003.