Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde is most likely to visit Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh on April 6 along with all MLAs and MPs of his Shiv Sena faction, said sources on Wednesday.
Mr. Shinde’s visit to the holy city has been on the cards for nearly a month. His Ayodhya tour, where the CM will participate in rituals along the Sarayu river and then offer worship to Lord Ram, comes after the Election Commission of India (ECI) awarded the ‘Shiv Sena’ name and the party’s ‘bow and arrow’ symbol to Mr. Shinde’s ‘rebel’ faction in his ongoing tussle with Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena group.
Over the past year, the holy site of Ayodhya has been a hotbed of competing ‘Hindutva’ parties including the undivided Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray, the BJP, the MNS and now the Eknath Shinde-led Sena.
`Show of strength’
In June last year, during former Maharashtra Minister Aaditya Thackeray’s visit, there was a challenge seen to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a ‘show of strength’ on the part of the still-undivided Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray.
At the time, Mr. Thackeray was the Chief Minister of the tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, which included the ideologically opposed Congress and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
Since the formation of the MVA in Maharashtra in late 2019 following the State Assembly election which led to the Sena breaking its ties with the BJP, Mr. Thackeray had come under fire from the BJP and its ‘covert’ ally— the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS)— who taunted Uddhav Thackeray of having forsaken his ‘Hindutva’ credentials.
In a riposte to Uddhav, Raj Thackeray— his estranged cousin— too, was due to go to Ayodhya but the visit ultimately came a cropper owing to vocal opposition from BJP MP Brij Bhushan Singh, who had demanded an apology from Mr. Raj Thackeray on account of the MNS’ past mistreatment of north Indians in Maharashtra, and the party’s regional chauvinism.
Incidentally, Mr. Shinde was part of Aaditya Thackeray’s train trip during the latter’s visit to Ayodhya on June 15 last year. Barely two weeks later, Mr. Shinde staged a revolt which split the Shiv Sena leadership and toppled Uddhav Thackeray’s MVA government.
According to Shinde faction leaders, the mahant of Ayodhya had himself given Mr. Shinde an invitation to visit the city and said that the CM would be honouring the invite with his visit in April.
