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By:

Quad Najmi and PTI

17 June 2026 at 5:11:32 pm

Uddhav faces another rebellion; decision today

Six Lok Sabha MPs trying to move away; picture may be clear at today’s Parliamentary party meeting in New Delhi AI generated image Mumbai: A cloak-and-dagger crisis engulfing the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena has landed at the door of the Lok Sabha Speaker, with the party urging him to guard against any unlawful defection and issuing a whip directing its MPs to attend a meeting in Delhi on Thursday. Amid the escalating crisis, a group of rebel Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders is learnt to have met...

Uddhav faces another rebellion; decision today

Six Lok Sabha MPs trying to move away; picture may be clear at today’s Parliamentary party meeting in New Delhi AI generated image Mumbai: A cloak-and-dagger crisis engulfing the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena has landed at the door of the Lok Sabha Speaker, with the party urging him to guard against any unlawful defection and issuing a whip directing its MPs to attend a meeting in Delhi on Thursday. Amid the escalating crisis, a group of rebel Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders is learnt to have met Speaker Om Birla informally on Wednesday, claiming the support of six of the party's nine MPs in the Lower House, sources said. Thursday's high-stakes meeting in Delhi will legally and physically define whether Uddhav Thackeray retains his parliamentary strength or faces another devastating party division, the third since Raj Thackeray split Shiv Sena in 2006. Sources in Sena (UBT) said the rival camp still doesn't have the support of six MPs. They claim two of the six rebels have reportedly changed their mind. In a swift counter-offensive to contain the damage, the party high command issued a mandatory three-line whip, summoning an emergency parliamentary party meeting in New Delhi on Thursday to force a physical showdown where the MPs will have to mark their presence physically. The developments triggered a day of high political drama in the national capital, marked by a furious, expletive-laden press conference by Raut, a reported counter-meeting by the rebel faction with Lok Sabha Speaker Birla, and sharp condemnation from the Congress. The internal fracture was visible at Sanjay Raut's press briefing, where only three other Lok Sabha MPs, Arvind Sawant, Anil Desai, and Rajabhau Waje, stood by him. The remaining six lawmakers were conspicuously absent; their exact whereabouts are unknown. The Sena (UBT) has nine MPs in the Lok Sabha, and at least two‑thirds of them would be required to form a separate group. Apart from Desai, Waje and Sawant, the other six MPs are Sanjay Patil, Sanjay Deshmukh, Omprakash Raje Nimbalkar, Bhausaheb Wakchaure, Nagesh Patil-Ashtikar and Sanjay Jadhav Not Reachable The six MPs stopped responding or became unavailable since Wednesday forenoon, after which the party stopped contacting them. They said when the party contacted Mumbai North East MP, Sanjay Dina Patil, he told party leaders that he was not with the rebel group. The party had asked them to submit a letter to the Lok Sabha Speaker, which he has not submitted so far. Later in the day, sources claimed that the group of six rebel lawmakers had privately met the Lok Sabha Speaker to claim a two-thirds majority in the Lower House, the precise threshold required to escape disqualification under the anti-defection law. Simultaneously, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who split the undivided Shiv Sena in 2022, was reportedly camping in Delhi to oversee the operational layout of the defection of MPs. He returned to his home town Thane in Wednesday night. He is reportedly studying all the legal aspects before taking a final call before the party’s foundation day on Friday. Speaker’s Role Following reports of the rebels' move, a loyalist delegation consisting of Raut, Sawant, and Desai rushed to meet Speaker Birla to file a formal representation urging him to reject any unlawful group alignment. Desai argued that the legal provisions are strictly on the side of the original organisational structure. "Under the law, a splinter group cannot simply merge with another party on its own, even if they have two-thirds support. Only the original administrative party holds that right," Desai told reporters, adding that the Speaker assured them he would thoroughly examine every legal aspect before rendering a decision. The widening panic inside the party also triggered a public, familial disconnect involving missing Hingoli MP Nagesh Patil-Ashtikar. While the MP remained unreachable, his son, Krushna Patil Ashtikar, the MVA's official candidate for Thursday's Maharashtra Legislative Council elections, released a video statement strongly defending Uddhav Thackeray. "I am a Shiv Sainik of Uddhav Thackeray. There is no room for doubt when it comes to me," the younger Ashtikar stated.

A Loss Well Played

The BJP’s bypoll defeat in Visavadar may look like a setback, but is in fact a cunning move in a longer game to fracture the opposition ahead of the 2027 Gujarat Assembly polls.

GUJARAT
GUJARAT

In India’s most saffron-saturated state, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) defeat in a by-election normally signals seismic political tremors. That the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won Visavadar, a Patidar stronghold in Gujarat’s Junagadh district, with a margin of over 17,500 votes has thus sparked no shortage of commentary about the BJP’s supposed vulnerability. But seasoned watchers of Gujarat politics would do well to read between the electoral lines. Far from being a sign of weakness, the BJP’s ‘loss’ may well be a calculated concession - a Trojan horse designed to induce a premature alliance between two uneasy opposition parties, the Congress and AAP, and in the process, bleed them both.


On the surface, the AAP’s win is significant. Gopal Italia, its controversial former state president, has clawed back a seat his party originally won in 2022, only to see the victorious MLA, Bhupendra Bhayani, defect to the BJP. Italia’s win also marks the party’s first flicker of resurgence since its drubbing in the Delhi Assembly elections earlier this year. Yet the BJP’s loss was not unexpected. Bhayani, the original defector, was not fielded. The BJP instead ran Kirit Patel, a relatively low-profile candidate in a region where local loyalties run deep. Against him, AAP fielded a polarising but high-visibility leader in Italia.


Italia’s candidacy was a gift in disguise. A known firebrand with little cross-community appeal, his victory, while headline-worthy, brings with it a curious political arithmetic. By handing a seat back to a leader best known for viral videos and agitation politics (but not effective governance), the BJP has ensured that the AAP remains just relevant enough to be a nuisance, but not formidable enough to truly threaten its grip over Gujarat. In fact, the win may compel AAP and Congress to enter into a seat-sharing arrangement for the 2027 assembly elections - an arrangement almost certainly destined to be fraught.


The two parties, after all, are natural rivals masquerading as reluctant partners. Since its Gujarat debut, the AAP has grown at Congress’s expense, not the BJP’s. In 2022, the AAP’s vote share was drawn largely from constituencies where Congress once held sway, especially among SC-ST blocs and sections of the Patidar community. By entering Gujarat as an ‘alternative,’ the AAP undermined the Congress’s claim to be the sole national opposition.


The Congress, for its part, remains in disarray. Despite launching a statewide ‘Sangathan Srijan Abhiyan’ to revive its grassroots apparatus, factionalism continues to hobble the party. A prospective alliance with AAP, especially after the latter’s posturing in 2022, could demoralise loyalists and further erode its social base.


Beneath the electoral theatre lies the BJP’s longer stratagem, say observers. The saffron party, which has ruled Gujarat uninterrupted since 1995, knows that its biggest strength lies not merely in winning votes, but in shaping the terrain of contest. It has long specialised in forcing opposition parties into reactive positions: engineering defections, exploiting rival egos and amplifying internal contradictions. The Visavadar bypoll fits neatly into this playbook. It allows the BJP to temporarily cede space to a lesser adversary while ensuring that the broader anti-BJP front remains divided and incoherent.


There is also the matter of optics. AAP’s hyperbolic claims that “only it can defeat the BJP in Gujarat” following this single-seat win will not escape the ruling party’s notice. Such overreach only adds to internal Congress frustrations, thereby accelerating the very fragmentation the BJP thrives on. So, while Visavadar may seem like a crack in the BJP’s Gujarat edifice, it is in reality a pressure valve that is calculated, timed and deliberately opened to destabilise its opponents. The real battle, as always, is not the seat at hand, but the narrative that follows after. On that front, the BJP remains leagues ahead.

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