By PTI
MUMBAI: Rebel Shiv Sena MLAs have aligned with the BJP in Maharashtra and if there is any possibility of reconciliation with the parent party, then Sena president Uddhav Thackeray should talk to the party’s estranged ally, a spokesperson of the dissident faction said on Thursday.
Deepak Kesarkar, who has been speaking to the media on behalf of the rebel faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, also targeted Sena MP and chief spokesman Sanjay Raut without naming him.
In an oblique reference to Raut, who has been making harsh comments against the rebel MLAs, Kesarkar said Thackeray should keep a little aside the people responsible for the revolt in the party.
”We and the BJP have come together. So there is a new family now. If we have to go back to the old family, then we are not alone. The BJP is with us. When he (Thackeray) calls us, he also has to talk to the BJP and bless us,” Kesarkar told reporters.
He was responding to a question on whether the rebel group will go back to the parent party if Thackeray, a former CM, asks them to do so.
Forty of the 55 Shiv Sena MLAs have joined the rebel camp led by Chief Minister Shinde.
The MLAs had urged Thackeray to sever ties with the NCP and the Congress and align with the BJP.
The NCP and the Congress were part of the Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government which collapsed last month after a section of the Sena MLAs revolted against the party leadership.
The Shiv Sena snapped ties with its long-standing ally BJP and joined hands with the NCP and the Congress in November 2019.
On June 30, Shinde took oath as the new CM with Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP as his deputy.
Sena MP Arvind Sawant on Thursday asserted that Uddhav Thackeray continues to be the Sena chief, even as most of its MLAs have rebelled and joined the faction led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
The Shiv Sena as a political party and the Sena legislature party are “two different entities”, Sawant told a web portal, and claimed the “rebel group does not have recognition”.
Even if two-thirds of the MLAs go, Uddhav Thackeray remains the Sena chief and according to law, only he is the one who can appoint leader of the legislature party, he said.
”You cannot separate Thackeray and the Shiv Sena,” Sawant asserted.
Rebel Shiv Sena MLA Gulabrao Patil on Wednesday said the faction led by CM Shinde was the real claimant of the party’s ‘bow and arrow’ poll symbol, a claim contested by the Uddhav Thackeray-headed camp.
Patil had also said that 12 of the 18 Shiv Sena MPs were supporting the Shinde-led group.
Sawant, who has been one of the leaders handling the Thackeray camp’s legal front in the midst of the setback that it has been facing, said according to the anti-defection law, the “rebel MLAs have to merge their group with some another party immediately.
”The rebels have not merged their group with another party. They don’t have any recognition. The law says they have to merge with a political party,” Sawant said.
Last month, a majority of the Sena MLAs, led by Shinde, rebelled against the party leadership, asking it to snap ties with the NCP and the Congress.
The revolt in the party led to the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led government.
Following the rebellion, Thackeray had removed Shinde as the Sena legislature party leader, and replaced him with Ajay Chaudhary.
Sunil Prabhu, who was then appointed the chief whip, had called a meeting of the MLAs while the rebel group was in Guwahati.
Sawant said since the rebels had not turned up, the party moved a disqualification plea before Deputy Speaker Narhari Zirwal.
Zirwal had recognised Chaudhary as the Sena legislature party leader and Prabhu as the chief whip, and sought response from rebel MLAs on their disqualification plea.
The rebels then moved the Supreme Court, which will hear their pleas on July 11.
Notably, newly elected state Assembly Speaker Rahul Narvekar had reinstated Shinde as the Shiv Sena legislature party leader, removing Ajay Chaudhary.
Narvekar also recognised the appointment of Bharat Gogawale from the Shinde camp as the chief whip of the Sena, removing Sunil Prabhu, who belongs to the Thackeray faction.
Sawant said Narvekar recognised Shinde as the Sena legislature party leader, but he did not given any legal provision while overruling the deputy speaker’s order.
MLA Sanjay Shirsat on Thursday said party founder late Bal Thackeray would have thrown Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut out of the party “in a minute” for the harsh language he used against dissident legislators in Maharashtra.
Speaking to reporters here, he hit out at Raut, the party’s chief spokesperson, and also found fault with the way Sena president Uddhav Thackeray had been handling the affairs of the 56-year-old political outfit.
Shirsat was one of the nearly 40 Sena MLAs who sided with Eknath Shinde – now the chief minister of Maharashtra – when he raised a banner of revolt against the party leadership, a move that subsequently led to the fall of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government last month.
The rebel MLAs first reached Surat from Mumbai on June 21 and later flew to Guwahati before coming back to the metropolis after Chief Minister Shinde took oath on June 30.
“We were 39 party MLAs and eleven independent MLAs in Guwahati. Sanjay Raut called us street girls when we were in Guwahati when there were women MLAs with us. If Balasaheb Thackeray had been alive today, he would have kicked Sanjay Raut out of the party in a minute,” Shirsat said.
The MLA from Aurangabad (West) repeatedly attacked Raut for his choice of words and acerbic statements against rebel legislators when they were staying in a Guwahati hotel.
“The statements of Sanjay Raut have hurt me. The women MLAs accompanying us cried on hearing some of his statements. If his (Raut’s) mother or sister would have been there, would Raut have spoken in such a manner? But these comments are being tolerated (under the current leadership). Such people are trying to sink the Shiv Sena,” he said.
Shirsat said the rebels supporting Shinde want to save the Shiv Sena and they will never go against the Thackeray family.
“We want to save the Shiv Sena, we will never talk against the party or the Thackeray family. We are respectful today and will be the same tomorrow also,” the legislator said.
Shirsat said no one is trying to understand why there was such a massive revolt in the Shiv Sena.
“Earlier, if anyone betrayed the party, he used to run here and there fearing he would be beaten up. Even if a corporator tried to betray, he would thinks ten times over it. But the party has lost 50 MLAs, including ministers and senior leaders.”
“Why one one is trying to understand (reasons for deep disgruntlement in the Sena). If the doors of Matoshree (Thackeray’s family residence in Mumbai) are shut for ‘four middlemen’ who are trying to finish the party, they will not survive for long,” the MLA maintained.
Shirsat, however, did not elaborate on “four middlemen” comment.
The MLA also took a dig at senior Sena leader Subhash Desai, a former Guardian Minister of Aurangabad district.
“The Guardian Minister didn’t even make a phone call to me in the past two-and-a-half years. The BJP-represented Gangapur Assembly constituency got funds of Rs 11 crore, whereas my constituency (Aurangabad West) got just Rs 1 crore,” he said.
Shirsat said fund distribution under the erstwhile MVA government was not equitable.
“We should see the funds allocated to the districts of the region through the Public Works Department (handled by Congress’s Ashok Chavan under the MVA regime) and see how much money has gone to Nanded (Chavan’s home district). A sports university announced for Marathwada was also taken to Balewadi (in Pune),” he added.
Meanwhile, former party MP Anandrao Adsul has resigned from his post as a leader of the party.
Adsul had earlier represented the Amravati Lok Sabha seat, but was defeated by Navneet Rana in 2019.
Talking to PTI, his son Abhijit Adsul said his father has resigned from the post of Shiv Sena leader.
To a question on whether he will join the Eknath Shinde-led Sena faction, Abhijit said, “My father will continue to remain a Shiv Sainik.”
Thackeray-led Shiv Sena recently faced a rebellion launched by senior leader Shinde.
Majority of party MLAs sided with Shinde, leading to the collapse of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government helmed by Thackeray.
Thackeray resigned from the post of chief minister on June 29, and a day after that Shinde took oath as the state CM.
