The Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut claimed that Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is ‘ignorant’ of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s history on the Surat raids and offered to send a ‘masterji’ to help polish his historical knowledge, here on Monday.

He was hitting out at the Bharatiya Janata Party leader for his allegations on Sunday that in his magnum opus, ‘Discovery of India’ (1946), India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had ‘insulted’ the Chhatrapati Shivaji by stating that he had looted Surat which was incorrect.

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Raut pointed out that Nehru had already regretted the mention of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in his treatise, which was penned when he was jailed at the Ahmednagar Fort (1942-1945).

“Nehru was imprisoned at the time. He admitted that he lacked references and that was why he had written such things on the Chhatrapati. He even apologised and rectified it in the next edition. But this is a 70-year-old matter. The BJP is searching the pages of history to talk about irrelevant things. They should talk about their insults to the Chhatrapati by them today, instead of pouring into history books repeatedly,” demanded Raut.

The war of words between the ruling MahaYuti and opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) continues a week after the Chhatrapati’s 28-foot tall figurine crashed at Rajkot Fort in coastal Sindhudurg.

Two days after PM Narendra Modi tendered an apology for the disaster to save the MahaYuti’s sinking image before the Assembly elections, the MVA has launched a fresh agitation around the state from September 1 on the issue.

At the MVA’s full-throated and aggressive ‘beat with shoes’ crusade in Mumbai on Sunday, Fadnavis raked up the issue of Chhatrapati’s plunders in Surat (1664 & 1670), describing them as insults meted out to the Maratha warrior king in Nehru’s books, and demanded that the Congress-MVA should now apologise for it.

He also referred to other instances when the Congress had allegedly bulldozed a statue of the Chhatrapati in Madhya Pradesh and in Karnataka, and asked the party to say ‘sorry’, but the people of Surat (Gujarat) erected a statue of the great Maratha there.

Congress leader Pawan Khera rubbished Fadnavis saying that Nehru had admitted to the error and it was changed from the next edition onwards.

Terming Fadnavis as the ‘chairman of the Aurangzeb fan club’ Raut charged the BJP with trying to foment riots by raking up Hindu-Muslim, India-Pakistan all the time, “otherwise they cannot face the (Assembly) elections, which they have mentally ‘lost’ already”.