Shinde camp now has 12 out of 19 Sena MPs

On Monday, the MPs, who were in New Delhi, virtually attended the meeting of the party national executive organised by the Shinde camp at a five-star hotel in South Mumbai

Mumbai In a vertical split in the Shiv Sena parliamentary party, 12 of 19 Lok Sabha MPs have pledged support to the rival camp led by chief minister Eknath Shinde.

A former MP, who has shifted loyalties to Shinde, and was present at the meeting, confirmed that 12 of these MPs were present (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT PHOTO)

On Monday, the MPs, who were in New Delhi, virtually attended the meeting of the party national executive organised by the Shinde camp at a five-star hotel in South Mumbai.

A former MP, who has shifted loyalties to Shinde, and was present at the meeting, confirmed that 12 of these MPs were present. The Shinde camp is expected to apply to Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla on Tuesday appointing Rahul Shewale as the group leader of the party, replacing Thackeray loyalist Vinayak Raut, and retaining Bhavana Gawali as the chief whip. Earlier, the party had written to Birla seeking that Thane MP Rajan Vichare replace Gawali, who along with Shinde’s son and Kalyan MP Dr Shrikant Shinde, was among the first to declare allegiance.

The Shiv Sena MPs are expected to meet prime minister Narendra Modi with Shinde during his visit to New Delhi on Tuesday and stress their allegiance to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Shinde has already walked away with 40 of the 55 Sena MLAs in Maharashtra and the dissension in the parliamentary leaves party president Uddhav Thackeray, who was ousted by Shinde as the chief minister last month, with just around seven Lok Sabha MPs.

“It is our firm opinion that we must go with our natural allies (the BJP) and abide by the credo of late party supremo (Bal Thackeray),” said Hemant Godse, the Sena’s MP from Nashik, who has thrown in his lot with Shinde. Sources said that after Shinde launched his rebellion on June 20, Shiv Sena MPs were approached to switch sides.

A Shiv Sena MP from the Thackeray camp confirmed the developments, but said the rebels were standing on weak ground. “As per the Shiv Sena’s constitution, it is only the party president who has the authority to appoint a group leader. They (the dissidents) cannot force their will. The national executive, which was announced in 2018, continues to be valid,” he claimed.

Thackeray had been compelled to announce his support to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) presidential nominee Draupadi Murmu in the presidential polls on Monday instead of former finance minister Yashwant Sinha, the candidate of the opposition due to pressure from his MPs and to prevent a further embarrassment due to cross-voting.

This was for the first time that the leadership of the autocratic, monolithic party had to bow to demands from its elected representatives. However, the split in the parliamentary party comes on the very day (Monday) that the polling took place.

The Sena has 19 MPs in the Lok Sabha, including 18 from Maharashtra and one from the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and three in the Rajya Sabha.

The split in the parliamentary party has left Thackeray with just six Lok Sabha MPs, namely, Arvind Sawant (South Mumbai), Gajanan Kirtikar (North West Mumbai), Vinayak Raut (Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg), Hemant Patil (Hingoli), Sanjay (Bandu) Jadhav (Parbhani), Omraje Nimbalkar (Osmanabad) and Rajan Vichare (Thane). Kalaben Delkar from Dadra and Nagar Haveli, who is the first Sena MP to be elected from outside Maharashtra, is yet to make her stand clear. All three Rajya Sabha MPs (Raut, Priyanka Chaturvedi and Anil Desai) are with Thackeray.