However, he resigned from that position four days before the sammelan in response to protests primarily by members of the varkari mahamandal against some of the material in his biographical novel "Santasurya Tukaram" (संतसूर्य तुकाराम).
Ovees have been extensively used in medieval period poetry by Marathi saint poets like Tukaram, Eknath and Ramdas.
Dilip Purushottam Chitre, a well known Marathi Scholar, identifies Tukaram as the first modern poet of Marathi.
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Dilip Chitre (18 September 1938 - 10 December 2009) has translated writings of Sant Tukaram into English in the book titled Says Tuka for which he was awarded the Sahitya Akademi award in 1994.
Tukaram | Tukaram Omble |
He wrote in Marathi on Dnyaneshwar, Namdev, Tukaram, Ramdas, Vitthal, Raghunath Dhondo Karve, Ram Ganesh Gadkari, Bal Sitaram Mardhekar, Dattatraya Ganesh Godse, Anandi Gopal Joshi, Ranjit Desai's novel Swami, Vijay Tendulkar's play Sakharam Binder, and many other topics.