Maharashtra crisis: Another Sena minister Uday Samant en route to Guwahati, may join rebels

A 'passenger manifest' of an airport services company bearing the name of Uday Samant with destination Guwahati is doing rounds on social media.

Another Shiv Sena leader and Maharashtra cabinet minister for higher and technical education Uday Samant has gone incommunicado on Sunday and is reportedly on his way to Guwahati from Surat to join the rebel group.

Maharashtra minister of higher & technical education Uday Samant leaves for Guwahati from Surat. (ANI )

A 'passenger manifest' of an airport services company bearing the name of Uday Samant with destination Guwahati is doing rounds on social media.

A passenger manifest of an airport services company bearing the name of Uday Samant

News agency ANI posted tweeted pictures in which Samant can be seen boarding a plane.

So far, state cabinet ministers Gulabrao Patil, Dada Bhuse, Sandipan Bhumre, and ministers of state Shamburaje Desai and Abdul Sattar (all Shiv Sena) have joined the camp of rebels. Another minister Bachu Kadu of Prahar Janshakti Party and an Independent minister from Sena quota, Rajendra Yedravkar, are also been camping with Shiv Sena dissident Eknath Shinde.

Meanwhile, the power tussle between chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and Shinde became intense with Sena leaders, led by Sanjay Raut, launching an acerbic attack on the rebels while NCP chief Sharad Pawar held closed-door meetings with MVA leaders.

On the second day in a row, Shiv Sena cadres staged protests against the dissidents in various parts of the state, including Mumbai and Pune.

State minister Aaditya Thackeray, son of Sena president Uddhav, and Sena chief spokesman Sanjay Raut addressed party cadres in suburban Dahisar to drum up support for the beleaguered party leadership and slammed the Shinde camp.

Pawar met leaders of NCP, Congress ministers Balasaheb Thorat and Ashok Chavan, and Shiv Sena's Anil Parab and Anil Desai to discuss the political fallout of the six-day-old rebellion.

Striking an aggressive note, Raut said the present crisis was an opportunity to resurrect Shiv Sena. "We have learnt a lesson on whom to trust....These are bodies whose souls have died. Their mind is dead....40 bodies will come from Assam and will be sent directly to the morgue for postmortem," Raut said in an apparent reference to the number of MLAs camping in Guwahati with Shinde while addressing Sena cadres.

(With inputs from agencies)