Arvind Bhosale, the newly appointed spokesperson of the Shiv Sena was showered with shoes and chappals by party activists across the State on October 19, the day Maharashtra poll results were out. He accepted those ‘gifts’ with great joy and supreme satisfaction.
Mr. Bhosale has walked barefoot for the past nine years having taken a vow not to wear shoes until the ‘traitor’ Narayan Rane, who defected from the Sena to the Congress in 2005, was humbled in the recent polls. His dream became a reality after Mr. Rane lost to Sena’s first-timer Vaibhav Naik in Kudal by a margin of over 9,000 votes.
None other than the party supremo Uddhav Thackeray will honour Mr. Bhosale with a pair of ‘golden chappals’ on Sunday.
“After he [Mr. Rane] joined the Congress and defeated my party in the 2005 by-poll, I had left my chappals outside the polling station in Kankavli [in Konkan]. I returned to Mumbai and pledged to walk barefoot everywhere, until my party defeats him in an election,” Mr. Bhosale told The Hindu .
According to him, Mr. Rane was a ‘traitor,’ as he disrespected Sena founder Bal Thackeray during that time. “I took it as my personal insult. I decided to make him pay for his deeds,” he said. In subsequent years, he asked Mr. Uddhav Thackeray to give him the responsibility to rebuild the party organisation in Sindhudurga district, as it had become Mr. Rane’s den. Despite being from Mumbai, he was given the task.
The former Chief Minister and now a Congress heavyweight, Mr. Rane tasted his first poll defeat in a 30-year career at the hands of a Sena novice. While the Sena candidate overnight became the ‘giant-killer,’ Mr. Bhosale too was credited for his organisational efforts and hard work.
But is he still angry with Mr. Rane? The Sena spokesperson said the ‘crime of disrespecting Balasaheb’ can never be forgotten. “Leaders like him [Mr. Rane] will now never underestimate an ordinary activist like me.”
