Mumbai: Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari, who is currently embroiled in a controversy over remark on Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, clarified on Monday that he had not insulted the warrior king and other icons of the state and he cannot even dream of any slur on them.
In a two-page letter addressed to Union Home Minister Amit Shah seeking direction on next course of action, he has drawn attention to his recent speech, and contended that certain small portions from that address were separated to criticise him.
Koshyari said he had cited instances of Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose who were inspiring icons when “we were students”, and the modern-day students also want to know the current era personalities who could be their ‘ideals’.
“In that context I had given the examples of personalities like Dr B R Ambedkar to (Union Minister) Nitin Gadkari… It also implied that students could even take (the late President) Dr A P J Abdul Kalam or (nuclear scientist) Dr Homi Bhabha as their idols… If someone considers Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has raised India’s status in the world as an ‘ideal’, it does not mean disrespect to the earlier ‘Maha Purush’… It is not even a subject of comparison,” he said.
In an indirect swipe at his bete-noir, the Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray but without naming him, the 80-year-old Governor said during the Covid-19 pandemic, “when many ‘big-big people’ were not stepping out of their homes, at my age, I had gone on a pilgrimage on foot to places like Shivneri, Sinhgad, Raigad, and Pratapgad.”
As far as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj is concerned, he is the pride of not only Maharashtra but the whole country, he added and recalled his trip to the birthplace of Shivaji’s mother, Mata Jijibai in Sindhkhed, becoming the first Governor in over 30 years to go there, and that too walking.
However, the Governor’s letter failed to impress leaders of the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), Nationalist Congress Party and others who remain firm that Koshyari should be shunted out of the state.
