'Balasaheb Thackeray of Thane': Who is Anand Dighe, the mentor of new Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde?

In the midst of the Maharashtra political turmoil, the names of Bal Thackeray, the founder of the Shiv Sena, and Anand Dighe have been thrown up repeatedly. In fact, in Thane, posters of ‘Guruvarya Dharmaveer Anand Dighe Saheb’ have been found plastered across the district as Eknath Shinde led the rebellion against the Uddhav Thackeray faction and finally acquired the chief minister’s post in the state of Maharashtra. Many political pundits have also drawn an analogy between Sena president Uddhav Thackeray’s tense face-off with his challenger Eknath Shinde and party founder Bal Thackeray’s strained ties with Shinde’s mentor Anand Dighe. Let’s take a look at who is Anand Dighe and how he has served inspiration for Shinde’s revolt against the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena. Who is Anand Dighe? Anand Dighe was a follower of Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray and the mentor of rebel leader Eknath Shinde. He began his political career in the Shiv Sena and became the president of the party’s Thane unit in 1984. Known to be a grassroot-level politician, the Sena leader — famously known for sporting a long beard and saffron tilak, lots of rings on his fingers — kept himself available 24x7 and was known for his simplicity, loyalty and honesty. Like Bal Thackeray, Dighe never contested election. He acquired mass popularity in the Thane area, and also came to be known as ‘the Balasaheb Thackeray of Thane’. To the locals of Thane, he was a problem-solver and people would often attend his darbar at Thane’s Tembhi Naka to seek his help with school-college admission for their children, hospitalisation, property disputes, among other things. So powerful was Dighe in the area that even the Thane Police didn’t interfer and successive police chiefs have even visited him as a ‘courtesy call’ after taking charge in the city. Dighe was the embodiment of a hardcore Shiv Sainik and can be credited for building the party up from scratch in the Thane belt. In the late ’80s, Dighe was arrested in connection with the murder of Mohan Khopkar, a Shiv Sena corporator who had voted against the party’s candidate in mayoral election in Thane city which led to Sena losing. He was charged under the then draconian Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) and was in jail for a long time. However, prison bars didn’t stop his popularity from waning and he continued to dominate politics in Thane till his death from a cardiac arrest following an accident in which his vehicle was crushed by a truck coming from the opposite direction in 2001. His hold on the party in Thane was so strong that even Bal Thackeray could not rein him in. Mentoring Eknath Shinde As reported earlier, Eknath Shinde, belonging to Satara district, moved to Thane in the ’70s and began his political career in the ’80s after working at a brewery as well as an autorickshaw driver . Shinde soon gained proximity to then Thane district Sena president Anand Dighe. In 2000, when Shinde lost his children in a drowning accident, it was Dighe who persuaded Shinde to come back to public life, making him the leader of the house in the Thane Municipal Corporation. After Dighe’s death in 2001, Shinde filled the void in the Sena’s Thane unit and many political observers and locals note that like Dighe, Shinde is a man of few words and possess the same s an agitational and belligerent style of functioning as his mentor — Dighe. Shinde recently even funded a Marathi film on Dighe’s life, titled Dharmaveer. Strained ties with Uddhav Uddhav and Eknath Shinde haven’t shared the closest of ties since the beginning. This could be attributed to the Thackeray family trying to avoid Shinde from becoming another Dighe in Thane and wielding unlimited power. Some believe that Uddhav saw Shinde getting too powerful and thus started clipping his wings over various matters. Dighe and Thackeray belonged to the same caste, CKP (Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu), and many Sainiks in Thane saw the former as an alternative to Thackerays. When Uddhav gained the chief minister’s seat, many claim that Shinde was marginalised and Uddhav gave more prominence to his son, Aaditya. With inputs from agencies Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.