Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray's last public appearance with his son Uddhav and grandson Aaditya at Dussehra rally at Mumbai's Shivaji Park in 2011. (Photo by Bhaskar paul for India Today)

Congress created Shiv Sena - a rumour which has been whispered behind closed doors and written on occasional social media posts - has received the stamp of a senior political leader. Speaking to India Today TV's Consulting Editor Rajdeep Sardesai, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that Congress created the Shiv Sena in the 1960s to counter the trade unions, which ruled the Mumbai city at the time.

Sharing the dais with political bigwigs at an India Today event in New Delhi on Thursday, Jairam Ramesh said that even though Congress and Shiv Sena may seem like old ideological opponents but it was two senior Congress leaders who were in many ways responsible for the creation of Shiv Sena.

"We were ideological opponents of Shiv Sena but let's not forget in 1967 it was SK Patil and VP Naik who were responsible in many ways for the creation of Shiv Sena to break the monopoly of the AITUC and the CITU then trade unions of Bombay [Mumbai]," Jairam Ramesh said.

SK Patil - a veteran Congress leader - was thrice elected as Mayor of Bombay and was known as "the uncrowned king of Bombay". VP Naik was also a Congressman and the chief minister of Maharashtra from 1963 until 1975. SK Patil and VP Naik were at the helm of affairs in Mumbai during the establishment and formative years of Shiv Sena.

Giving further examples of Shiv Sena's 'history' with Congress, Jairam Ramesh said, "Let's not forget that in 1980, the first leader to come out in favour of Abdul Rehman Antule as chief minister of Maharashtra was Bal Thackeray. It was Bal Thackeray who broke ranks with NDA to support Pratibha Patil for the president-ship. He broke ranks with the NDA to support Pranab Mukherjee."

"There has been a degree of pragmatism on both sides. And the binding glue today is that we have a common enemy," Jairam Ramesh said.

There has been several examples of the alleged bonhomie between Shiv Sena and Congress, which have been attributed as proof that Congress was behind Shiv Sena's foundation and rise, but it is for the time that a Congress leader came on a public platform and said it.

Why Congress needed Shiv Sena?

As author Sujata Anandan has said in her book Hindu Hriday Samrat, even as Mumbai is seen as a city owned by Shiv Sainiks today, it had belonged to the communist parties in the 1960s and the frequent strikes and demands by workers had tired Bombay’s entrepreneurs to the core.

At the time, the left parties were the only political challenge to the Congress and both its leaders and the businessmen who funded the Congress wished to see the back of the communist trade unions whose domination even the Congress-sponsored trade unions had failed to break.

Over the years, several political commentators, including Sujata Anandan, have claimed that Congress covertly backed Shiv Sena with cash and overtly looked the other away when Shiv Sainiks overstepped the law.

Even as they looked ideological opponents at the surface, the two parties back each other up and remained close allies till the late 1980s.

After the Indira Gandhi government imposed Emergency, Bal Thackeray was among a few Opposition leaders to support the move. In 1977, Bal Thackeray helped Congress leader late Murli Deora get elected as Mayor of Mumbai (then Bombay).

In 1980, when elections were held after the Janata Party experiment failed, Bal Thackeray’s Shiv Sena did not contest polls and extended support to Congress instead.

The Shiv Sena-BJP alliance came up in 1989 after an informal tie-up for 1984 polls. But joining hands with the BJP did not stop the Shiv Sena from supporting Pratibha Patil, a Congress nominee, in 2007 Presidential election. Shiv Sena also backed Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee as President even as Congress had not made an appeal for the support.

Will this history of alleged bonhomie between Shiv Sena and Congress help strengthen their future ties, it remains to be seen.