While demanding a ban on the Sanatan Sanstha in view of the ongoing arrests of its alleged associates, the rift between senior Congress leaders has once again come to the fore. Former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan has reiterated that he had sent a proposal to ban the sanstha in 2011, but the then Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde has said he wasn't aware of any such thing.

It appears like a rerun of a similar clash between the two in June 2016 when, after some sanstha-related people were arrested in the Dabholkar killing, Chavan had asked for the group to be banned. Chavan, in Pune, demanded that the sanstha be banned with immediate effect by considering a pending proposal. According to Chavan, his government had, in 2011, sent a 1,000-page dossier recommending a ban under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, to the then Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, who held the portfolio for 15 months, and then followed it up with Shinde, who had taken over the ministry later.