Sena attacks Sachin again, compare to Gavaskar

Unleashing a fresh attack on great Indian Cricketer Sachin Tendulakar, Shiv Sena on November 22, compared him to former Test player and another great cricketer Sunil Manohar Gavasker and cited Gavaskar as 'a true Maharastriyan.'

Gavaskar is a true Maharashtrian, who helped marathi players during his captaincy, said 'Saamana', the mouth piece of Shiv Sena in its latest edition. Appreciating to Gavaskar, Sanjay Raut, the executive editor, Saamna said, "when he captained India had half the team drawn from Mumbai and Maharashtra. He gave Test caps to many Marathi players including Suru Naik and Zulphikar Parkar at least for one match."

In the comparison, Sanjay alleged to Tendulkar to play only for BCCI (Board of Cricket Control of India), not for India and did not help any Maharastriyan cricketer, even his fast friend Vinod Kambli. " Sachin may be a big cricketer, but he is not bigger than Maharashtra. Sachin has not sacrificed his life for the country like Lokmanya Tilak, Bhagat Singh and Rajguru," Raut said.

"There has been no instance of Sachin extending a helping hand to other Marathi cricketers. Forget others he did not even support Vinod Kambli, " he added.

Sena expects that Sachin should be proud to a Maharashtrian same like Saurav Ganguly is of Bengal, Saamna’s article says. "Even Rahul Dravid too is a Marathi player but he is loyal to Karnataka," it added.

This war of the words began when, Sachin Tendulkar, a week ago had publicly said, "I am a Maharashtrian and I am extremely proud of that. But I am an Indian first. And Mumbai belongs to all Indians."

Shiv Sena, which lost the past assembly election in Maharastra badly, opposed his statement and bowled a bouncer releasing an offensive statement that Sachin should pay attention only towards cricket.

The entire country opposed the statement of Shiv Sena, even the two leading channels of IBN network had to face two offensive attacks on November 20 when the activists of Shiv Sena attacked on the office of IBN’s Marathi Channel 'Lokmat' and Hindi News Channel ‘IBN7’ in Mumbai and Pune on the alleged misquoting on Shiv Sena Supremo 'Balasaheb Thackeray'.