Sanjay vs Sanjay: Furious Nirupam hammers Raut for saying Indira Gandhi met gangsters

Rebutting Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut's claim on Indira Gandhi, former Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam, on Thursday tweeted that 'Sena's poet should stick to entertaining Maharashtra'. Nirupam, who is an ex-Sena MP, said that defaming former PM Indira Gandhi would make the Sena cost later. He also demanded that Raut take back his comments on former PM Indira Gandhi meeting underworld don Karim Lala.

Congress slams Sena for defaming Indira Gandhi

CONTROVERSIAL: Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut claims 'Indira Gandhi met with don Karim Lala'

Raut: Indira met with Karim Lala

In a massive statement against Maha Vikas Aghadi ally Congress, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Wednesday claimed that former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi met with underworld don Karim Lala, in an interview with a local Marathi news agency. Talking about the past influence of the underworld over Mumbai, he claimed that the underworld decided who will be the city's commissioner and in the state secretariat. Moreover, he claimed that the entire secretariat would meet don Haji Mastan when he was in town.

"They (underworld) used to decide who will be Mumbai's police commissioner and who will sit in Mantralaya (state secretariat)," Raut said. He added, "When (underworld don) Haji Mastan came to Mantralaya, the entire secretariat would come down to see him. Indira Gandhi used to meet Karim Lala in Pydhonie (in south Mumbai)".

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Karim Lala was one of the three top underworld dons of Mumbai for over two decades, from the sixties to the early eighties, the other two being Mastan Mirza alias Haji Mastan and Varadarajan Mudaliar. Raut claimed he ed pictures of many gangsters, including Dawood Ibrahim, adding that he had once even rebuked the gangster. Incidentally, Shiv Sena which was founded in 1960s, has held power over Mumbai since 1985.

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Maha Vikas Aghadi

The 35-year alliance of the Shiv Sena and the BJP fell post-Assembly elections squabbling over a 50-50 power-sharing and shared CM post. While the Sena was in final talks with Congress-NCP to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi, Fadnavis with Ajit Pawar took oath as CM & deputy CM. This BJP-NCP government lasted for four days, failing to win the trust vote, leading to Uddhav Thackeray being sworn in as the first Thackeray CM. The Maha Vikas Aghadi have a 'secular' common minimum programme making it imperative for all parties to take a united stance on national issues - this has been a bone of contention several times for the Hindutva supporting Shiv Sena, which differs from the Congress on several issues like Ram Mandir, Veer Savarkar, Triple Talaq etc.

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