Shivaji Statue Collapse Controversy: Uddhav Sena BJP Cadre Clash, Congress Plays Caste Card

The Shivaji statue collapse controversy in Maharashtra has taken a violent turn after cadres of Shiv Sena (UBT) – part of the coalition of opposition parties, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) – clashed with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) cadre inside the sea-side Rajkot fortress at Malvan on Wednesday (August 28).

The incident took place while BJP leader and Sindhudurg Lok Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) Narayan Rane’s entourage was visiting the site inside the fortress where the now collapsed statue of the 17th-century ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji once stood.

After seeing the BJP leader Rane, Shiv Sena UBT cadre who had gathered to support party leader Aditya Thackeray who was also present to inspect the site, started raising provocative slogans. This was then followed by stone pelting and sloganeering from both sides.

Tensions have been running high in the state after a 35-feet statue of the Maratha king erected on a raised platform along the sea-side walls of the Rajkot fortress collapsed on August 26, 2024. The statue was commissioned by the Indian Navy on the occasion of Navy Day and was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 4 last year.

In the immediate aftermath of the statue’s collapse, leaders from the MVA constituent parties alleged that the contract for making the statue was given to an inexperienced sculptor who is supposed to be close to the state’s Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

The opposition party leaders also alleged that the statue was commissioned in haste to facilitate its inauguration by the hands of PM Modi before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Subsequently, a letter written by the state government’s Public Works Department (PWD) official to the Indian Navy also emerged, in which the PWD official is seen to have pointed out structural anomalies in the statue.

While the protests over the statue’s collapse were initially limited to a few demonstrations and statements by opposition leaders, tensions accentuated after a controversial statement made by Deepak Kesarkar, School Education Minister from the Shinde-led Shiv Sena, who is also the Guardian Minister for the Sindhudurg District where the fortress is located.

In a statement given to regional media, Minister Kesarkar said, “I feel this collapse was an accident. Maybe something good is supposed to happen in the future out of this tragic incident.”

The Minister later added that the only way to assuage the feelings of the state’s residents who revere the Maratha king is to build an even bigger and stronger statue.

Congress Picks Out Deputy CM Fadnavis’s Caste

While the opposition parties have lost no time in attacking the state government, MVA constituent Congress has resorted to playing the caste card to further increase the public ire against the BJP and in particular against the Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis.

In a video titled Maharaj Aamhaala Maaf Kara, the opposition party alleged that the ruling Mahayuti coalition is corrupt and that its leaders did not even spare the statue of the revered king.

“Maharaj, the forts built by you in the 17th century still stand strong but your statue built by this corrupt government could not even last for eight months… It takes at least two years to make a strong state but these descendents of the Peshwas got one made within four months… they used your name Maharaj just to gain votes,” the narrator is heard saying in this reel posted on the official handle of the Maharashtra Youth Congress on social media networking site Instagram.

The reference to the Peshwas, the Prime Ministers of the Maratha Confederacy, is complemented in the reel by moving images of Deputy CM Fadnavis.

Peshwas, who were appointed as the senior most Minister cum bureaucrats from the time when Shivaji founded his independent state till the downfall of the Maratha confederacy in 1818, were all Brahmins by caste.

Since Deputy CM Fadnavis too hails from the same social grouping, Congress is seen capitalising on the misrepresentation of the Peshwas in the regional pro-Maratha caste media as despots who deceived the ruling descendents of Shivaji and has equated the BJP leader with them.

Notably, Manoj Jarange, the leader of the ongoing Maratha caste agitation, too has consistently referred to Fadnavis's caste background in his rally speeches across the state.