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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Shinde ‘feasts’ on Thackeray’s party

AI generated image Mumbai: The Shiv Sena (UBT)’s worst fears proved true on Thursday when six suspected ‘turncoat’ MPs failed to attend its crucial parliamentary party meeting in New Delhi – signaling another ‘split’ in four years – and posing a serious challenge to ex-Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s leadership and credibility. The crucial parliamentary party meeting saw only three (out of total 9) Lok Sabha MPs – Arvind Sawant (Mumbai South), Anil Desai (Mumbai South-Central) and...

Shinde ‘feasts’ on Thackeray’s party

AI generated image Mumbai: The Shiv Sena (UBT)’s worst fears proved true on Thursday when six suspected ‘turncoat’ MPs failed to attend its crucial parliamentary party meeting in New Delhi – signaling another ‘split’ in four years – and posing a serious challenge to ex-Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s leadership and credibility. The crucial parliamentary party meeting saw only three (out of total 9) Lok Sabha MPs – Arvind Sawant (Mumbai South), Anil Desai (Mumbai South-Central) and Rajabhau Waje (Nashik) – in attendance as per a whip issued two days ago, when the so-called ‘Operation Tiger’ was in advanced stages. At the tense meeting, with their eyes trained on the doors, they waited for over an hour for their six LS colleagues - Sanjay Dina Patil (Mumbai North East), Nagesh Patil Ashtikar (Hingoli), Sanjay Jadhav (Parbhani), Omprakash Nimbalkar (Dharashiv), Sanjay Deshmukh (Yavatmal-Washim) and Bhausaheb Wakchaure (Shirdi) – who never turned up. Emerging from the meeting the ruffled trio of Raut, Sawant and Desai confronted the huge crowd of media-persons and announced what was already public knowledge – that the SS (UBT) was breaking again. A tense Sawant somehow managed to smile and said that since the 6 MPs have defied the party whip, they would face the appropriate consequences. “We have followed the procedures and sent them individual show-cause notices, seeking their replies within a week,” he said. Raut said that if they fail to reply to the show-cause notices, then the party will initiate the necessary proceedings – in the Parliament, the courts and the streets. Operation Tudva In a raging mood, Raut warned that the SS (UBT) workers will ‘teach’ all the six MPs a lesson and now the party had launched a counter ‘Operation Tudva’ – akin to a similar initiative implemented successfully by the (undivided) NCP in 2019. “They are unscrupulous, unprincipled traitors. We have been told that they have taken huge sums of money to break away from our party. They took Rs 15-cr. to board the chartered aircraft two days ago, and yesterday again took Rs 10-cr to go to an undisclosed destination in Rajasthan,” claimed Raut, his outburst splattered with expletives for the second day. He reiterated his demand that “if all the six MPs first resign from their seats and contest elections afresh, we shall not label them as traitors”, even as Nationalist Congress Party (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar alleged that each MP reportedly stood to make Rs 85-cr, plus more through other means. Threatening MPs Angry Shiv Sainiks burnt effigies of all the MPs in their respective constituencies and threatened of physical attacks or their properties, prompting the state government to accord them Y-Plus category security as per a wireless directives issued by the State Commissioner of Intelligence Shirish Jain today. Indicating deep fissures, the absence of the six MPs pointed to the likelihood of them officially preparing to align with the Shiv Sena led by Deputy CM Eknath Shinde marking success of the ‘Operation Tiger’. Yesterday, the rebels had called on Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and submitted a letter seeking to be recognized as a separate parliamentary group. The SS (UBT) also met the Speaker yesterday to submit a counter-letter and urged him to refrain from according any recognition to the breakaway group, and stick to the laws and Constitutional norms. However, if the Speaker accepts the rebels’ plea, it could formalize the impending ‘split’ and prove a huge setback for the SS (UBT). Eknath Shinde gets the “lion’s share” of SS (UBT) Prowling stealthily and effectively Shiv Sena President and Deputy CM Eknath Shinde ostensibly masterminded the ‘Operation Tiger’ and took away the lion’s share of 6 (out of 9) MPs from his bete-noire, ex-CM Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) – for the second time in 4 years with lot of symbolism attached to the political man-hunt. Though party sources remained tight-lipped, it is learnt that Shinde’s ace team of political and legal advisors have gone through all the nitty-gritties, all the possibilities, the fallout in Parliament, the courts and the streets, before giving the green signal to strike at Thackeray’s party. On the next course, a party leader said that “only Shinde-ji has the authority” to decide and speak on this”, and he may well have some new aces up his trademark white-shirt sleeves in the coming days.

‘Tiger’ shrinks to an ‘alley cat’

The Shiv Sena founded by the late Balasaheb Keshav Thackeray in 1966 may have little reason to celebrate its Diamond Jubilee tomorrow – in his birth centenary year.

 

For the second time in four years today, the party – now, Shiv Sena (UBT) - has suffered a potential split, ironically led by Eknath Shinde who first broke away on June 21, 2022.

 

Political soothsayers aver that this time the bodily harm is serious and the wound goes deep, so the party - which espoused the cause of the ordinary Marathi manoos and the lofty Hindutva - may not survive another hit in future.

 

In the past 60-years of its high-profile existence - in power for around17-and-half years and the rest in the limelight – the party has had its share of rebellions and splits, but it managed to bounce back due to the sheer awe of the Thackeray surname.

 

It all started 35 years ago with the doughty Chhagan Bhujbal who dared to bare the Shiv Sena’s shortcomings and quit in Dec. 1991 – stunning the party that ran on the signals or just a wave of Balasaheb’s hand. His abrupt exit along with 18 MLAs after a tiff with his mentor. Though many MLAs returned as Balasaheb roared his disapproval, Bhujbal seemed to politically flourish and made it to the post of Deputy CM, and later as Minister for many years.

 

After deserting Balasaheb, Bhujbal had joined the Congress, then led by Sharad Pawar who later broke off to form the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in 1999 where Bhujbal followed him. However, in July 2023, when the late Ajit Pawar split the party founded by his uncle, Bhujbal went with him, dumping his original Guru, Sharad Pawar, now left with the NCP (SP).

 

Come 2005, there was another huge blow when ex-Chief Minister and the then Leader of Opposition in Assembly Narayan Rane was expelled by Balasaheb following (Rane’s) differences with Uddhav Thackeray, then the party’s Executive President. Rane hopped over to the Congress on the assurance of getting the CM’s gaddi, but it never came, so he quit the party to form his own outfit, which he merged with the Bharatiya Janata Party and became a union minister.

 

In November 2005, Balasaheb’s nephew Raj Thackeray resigned from the party after multiple tiffs with his cousin, Uddhav, and four months later, founded the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which has yet to taste power. For nearly two decades, the warring cousins were practically at each other’s political throats, but in mid-2025, they finally hugged, kissed and made up for the larger cause of Marathi language, the Marathi Manoos, and other common points.

 

When Uddhav broke ranks with the BJP to become the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Chief Minister, he got a rudest jolt of his life when Eknath Shinde masterminded a rebellion, took away 40 MLAs and toppled him from the ‘gaddi’. Shinde allied with the BJP to become the CM of the Maha Yuti government for almost two-and-half years. However, after the Nov. 2024 elections, the BJP made him the Deputy CM, and later Ajit Pawar joined as the second Deputy CM in July 2023.

 

When the MVA of SS (UBT), Congress and NCP (SP) notched a spectacular performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections getting 31 of the 48 seats they contested, all eyes were on its MPs, but later the Maha Yuti romped home in the November 2024 Assembly elections.

 

After long planning and strategizing, Shinde allegedly launched the Operation Tiger and is one the verge of weaning away 6 out of 9 SS (UBT) Lok Sabha MPs – a second vertical split the Uddhav-led party suffered in four years.

 

Over the past three decades, there were other ‘ayarams’ and ‘gayarams’ including the aggressive Sanjay Nirupam, who quit the (undivided) Shiv Sena, joined the Congress and is currently with Shinde’s party.

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