“There have been many complaints against Gaikwad in the past. We have even tried to find an alternative to him. But somehow, he has such a strong hold over his constituency, that we could not replace him. But he is known to be rash and abusive,” a senior Shiv Sena leader told The Sunday Guardian on the condition of anonymity. Gaikwad, an MP from Osmanabad, is known to be a giant-slayer. Before being elected as Member of Parliament, he was elected to the Maharashtra Assembly for two continuous terms. Gaikwad has been a member of the joint committee on security in Parliament since April 2015. He has many criminal cases filed against him for voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servants from duty, criminal intimidation and rioting among others.
In 2014, he was named among the group of 11 Shiv Sena MPs who were accused of force-feeding chapati to a Muslim employee who was observing Ramzan. T
he other Shiv Sena MPs named with him were Sanjay Raut, Anandrao Adsul, Rajan Vichare, Arvind Sawant, Hemant Godse, Krupal Tumane, Vinayak Raut, Shivaji Adhalrao Patil, Rahul Shewale and Shrikant Shinde. While Sanjay Raut had denied that he was present in New Maharashtra Sadan when the incident took place, other MPs had asked why they should “tolerate” the “discriminatory” treatment meted out to them. They raised issues of how they were denied Maharashtrian food, how they were not allotted bigger rooms. The language was similar to the one used by Gaikwad after he landed in Mumbai on Saturday. He said that he was a Shiv Sainik, and would not tolerate the arrogance of anyone.
Even then, no action had been initiated from within the party against these leaders. A year later, in 2016, Shiv Sena’s local leader Shashikant Kalgude from Thane was caught on CCTV camera while assaulting a woman traffic police constable. She had stopped him at a busy junction after he was found to be speaking on the phone while driving. He had claimed to be a local Sena leader. The party had initially refused association with him, but had later acknowledged that he was a former shakha pramukh of the party. The party had said that the he should be given strict punishment for his behaviour. “We are a party inspired by Shivaji Maharaj. We have been taught to respect women,” a Sena leader had said then. Local reports from the area claimed that though Sena dissociated itself from Kalgude, he was indeed a member of the party.