'Shivaji is our God': Gadkari plays peacemaker in BJP-Shinde Sena row

Union minister Nitin Gadkari - who finds himself thrust into the centre of a row over Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari's remarks on Chhatrapati Shivaji - sought to douse those flames Monday, tweeting 'Chhatrapati Shivaji maharaj is our God' in Marathi.

Gadkari's tweet came after Sanjay Gaikwad - an MLA with chief minister Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena faction - demanded Koshyari be 'sent somewhere else' and appeared to warn the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to act or deal with 'differences... between the two parties'.

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"Governor (Koshyari) should understand ideals of Chhatrapati Shivaji maharaj never age and he cannot be compared to any other great person... My request to BJP leaders is that a person who does not know the history of the state... be sent somewhere else," Gaikwad said.

The Shinde Sena MLA's thinly-veiled warning has been viewed by some as a potential problem for the BJP, which will want to focus on the election in Gujarat and Delhi next month, and plan for 2023 - when Mumbai holds all-important civic body polls.

The row erupted after Koshyari called Shivaji a 'hero of the past era' and Gadkari a moden-day 'hero'. "When we were in school teachers would ask us about our favourite leaders... Maharashtra is full of such tall leaders... Shivaji has become hero of the past era," he said.

That was then compounded after the BJP's national spokesperson - Sudhanshu Trivedi - said Shivaji had written five letters to Mughal emperor Aurangzeb; that was an attempt to attack the Congress and Rahul Gandhi over the latter's comment about VD Savarkar.

Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis - who had attacked Gandhi over the Savarkar comment - has since been forced into defence and had had to declare that 'till the moon and sun are there... Maharashtra’s icon will always be Chhatrapati Shivaji maharaj..."

"No doubt in anybody's heart and, even that of a governor, regarding Shivaji maharaj."