Sena hits out at Uttam Khobragade for caste slur on Marathi media

The Shiv Sena may have declared its support for Marathi mulgi Devyani Khobragade and demanded that India retaliate strongly to the affront of her arrest, but the party also wasted no time in lashing out at the Indian diplomat’s father Uttam Khobragade when he suggested that the Marathi media were looking at this case through a casteist lens. “It’s his mental bankruptcy,” said an editorial in Monday’s issue of the Saamna newspaper, the party’s mouthpiece. [caption id=“attachment_1292655” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Uttam Khobragade, father of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade, after meeting Indian Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde in New Delhi, India. AP[/caption] At a press conference in Delhi’s Maharashtra Sadan, after it was clear that Devyani would be returning to India, Khobragade responded to a question about her owning a flat in the controversial Adarsh society despite being ineligible for it by calling the Marathi media casteist. He reportedly raged against the Marathi press, and threatened to not keep them informed about his daughter’s arrival in India. The media, including the Marathi newspapers and TV channels, have played a stellar role in exposing the alleged role of a range of people now named in the Adarsh Inquiry Commission’s report – from bureaucrat Jayraj Phatak to former chief ministers Ashok Chavan and Sushilkumar Shinde. “It’s because the Marathi media pursued the issue aggressively that two chief ministers had to resign. In fact Ashok Chavan’s political career was destroyed,” the editorial says. How a well-educated person such as Uttam Khobragade cannot rid his mind of casteism is surprising, the editorial continues. The senior Khobragade, a retired IAS officer, is widely believed to be looking for a career in politics. He has himself confirmed that he is in talks with political parties for a ticket to contest the general elections in 2014. Early last week, Khobragade also staged a protest outside the US Consulate along with a group of acrtivists from a Maharashtra-based Dalit organisation. Khobragade, a Dalit and an officer of the 1984 batch, was in the news when his daughter Devyani acquired a flat in the Adarsh building during his tenure as chief of the Brihanmumbai Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport undertaking. With BEST having transferred some floor space index to facilitate a taller Adarsh building, questions were raised on the propriety of the decision.