The Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction would soon split, with many MLAs merging into its coalition partner BJP, Uddhav Thackeray camp MP Sanjay Raut said on Monday. He ruled out the prospect of any future unification with Mr. Shinde’s ‘rebel’ Sena faction, while claiming that the ruling Shinde-Fadnavis government was on the verge of collapse.
Mr. Raut’s remarks came a day after Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena (as Mr. Shinde’s faction is known) leader and Minister Deepak Kesarkar said if Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray introspected to understand what had prompted his MLAs to rebel, it would help lessen the current bitterness between the two factions and might help in bringing them together in the future.
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Legal tussle
Stating that the Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena would drift into political oblivion, Mr. Raut asserted that 16 rebel MLAs would be soon disqualified by the Supreme Court, where the legal tussle between the two factions since Mr. Shinde’s intra-party revolt last year is still dragging on.
“While there has been a delay in the verdict, we [the Thackeray faction] are confident that once the hearing starts, the verdict will come soon and the 16 MLAs [of the Shinde Sena] will be disqualified,” he said.
Mr. Raut said that once the Shinde Sena faction MLAs were disqualified, the rebel group would have no option but to merge with their ally, the BJP as the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena will not accept them.
“The Sena under Uddhav Thackeray is the ‘real’ Shiv Sena…the public has already decided not to vote for these traitors in the next Lok Sabha and Assembly elections,” he said, adding that the Sena under Uddhav was “blossoming and expanding.”
Exhorting Mr. Kesarkar to introspect, Mr. Raut said that going by the statements of Shinde camp Minister Abdul Sattar, it appeared that more factions had been formed within the Chief Minister’s Shiv Sena and that there was apparently a raging factional struggle going on there.
“Abdul Sattar himself revealed that he was being targeted by his fellow ministers and MLAs of the Eknath Shinde-led Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena. This underscores the tensions within the rebel camp,” claimed Mr. Raut.
Mr. Sattar has recently been embroiled in a case of illicitly allotting 37 acres of government land in Washim district to a private individual. While facing severe flak from the Opposition, the Minister recently alleged a ‘conspiracy’ to discredit him by his own party members.
