A day after Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan said his government would recommend Bharat Ratna for Sachin Tendulkar, Shiv Sena on Saturday batted for the country’s highest civilian honour for the cricket icon.
“Sachin definitely deserves ‘Bharat Ratna’ He is breaking record after record,” Shiv Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray told reporters on the sidelines of a function.
Tendulkar became the first cricketer to score a double-century in ODIs on Wednesday. He made the double-ton against South Africa in Gwalior.
Not long ago, the champion batsman faced acerbic criticism from Uddhav’s father and Sena Chief Bal Thackeray for his “Mumbai for all” remark.
On November 16 last year, Thackeray senior had slammed Tendulkar, saying he had no need to take a “cheeky single” and hurt the Marathi psyche.
“By making these remarks, you have got run-out on the pitch of Marathi psyche. You were not even born when the ’Marathi Manoos’ got Mumbai and 105 Marathi people sacrificed their lives to get Mumbai,” Thackeray wrote in an editorial in Sena mouthpiece ‘Saamana’
“Mumbai belongs to India. That is how I look at it. I am a Maharashtrian and I am extremely proud of that but I am an Indian first,” the cricket icon had said drawing Thackeray’s anger.
