Union home minister and BJP leader Amit Shah, addressing a public gathering in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, on Saturday, said what the Eknath Shinde camp had been building toward for four years. "Earlier, people had to say 'Shiv Sena-Shinde faction' after Eknath Shinde ji's name," Shah said, speaking in Hindi. “Now no faction remains anymore... there is only one Shiv Sena.”
The remark came as six of nine Lok Sabha MPs of Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena (UBT) skipped a parliamentary meeting in Delhi, and submitted a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla seeking to form a separate grouping. Merger into the Shinde-led Shiv Sena is expected to be formalised imminently, and thus support to the BJP-led NDA regime at the Centre led by PM Narendra Modi.
For Amit Shah, whose party has not-so-discreetly backed moves that have eroded Uddhav Thackeray's organisational strength since Shinde broke away in 2022, the declaration in Kolhapur was a statement of strategic completion.
{{/usCountry}}For Amit Shah, whose party has not-so-discreetly backed moves that have eroded Uddhav Thackeray's organisational strength since Shinde broke away in 2022, the declaration in Kolhapur was a statement of strategic completion.
{{/usCountry}}It was not the first time Shah had framed Shinde's party — which got the name and symbol of the Shiv Sena founded by Uddhav's late father Bal Thackeray — as the authentic heir to Bal Thackeray's legacy.
At an event in Mumbai, Shah had said, "Shinde has shown which is the real Shiv Sena to everybody." Team Uddhav's Sanjay Raut joked that this was akin to saying the Republican Party in the US belongs to Ramdas Athawale (who has his own party by that name in India). “Everyone knows Amit Shah owns Shinde's party,” Raut had said.
BJP's stance
The BJP has publicly maintained distance from the Shinde-led Sena's ‘Operation Tiger’. Maharashtra revenue minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule of the BJP said his party had no connection with the developments and that Uddhav Thackeray's MPs were leaving the party on their own.
But, according to senior Sena leaders who spoke to HT, the split plan was conceived soon after the 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections and was activated when the Delimitation Bill was defeated in Parliament because Modi's government does not have the required twi-thirds strength. Eknath Shinde and his son, Kalyan MP Shrikant Shinde, reportedly convinced the BJP leadership at the Centre that the Sena could add to NDA's numbers by persuading Sena (UBT) MPs to switch.
The move, coupled with the rebellion within Bengal's TMC, is being seen as an attempt by the BJP to shore up support for its Delimitation Bill. There are reports of the monsoon Parliament session being advanced by a few days from July 21 to ensure the passing of the Delimitation Bill as a prerequeisite to the 33% women's quota being operationalised.
“The BJP is behind this entire plan, but Eknath Shinde has been made the figurehead,” Sena (UBT) leader Ambadas Danve told news agency PTI. "This plan was executed to increase the NDA's headcount in Parliament so they can pass the Delimitation Bill. The BJP fears losing its mandate in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections," Danve said.
Arvind Sawant, the party's Lok Sabha leader, shot off a letter to Speaker Om Birla urging him not to recognise any rebel faction, describing the developments as part of the BJP's "onslaught on the Opposition" following its failure to pass the Delimitation Bill on April 17.
Sena that remains
The rebellion also completes a long arc for the BJP-Shinde relationship. When Shinde launched his revolt in June 2022, he framed it in Hindutva terms — tweeting #HindutvaForever from Guwahati and calling the MVA an "unnatural alliance" that had to be broken for the Sena's survival. The BJP provided the political cover, and ultimately the CM's chair to Shinde for then.
The Election Commission in 2023 ruled that the Shinde faction had the right to use the name 'Shiv Sena' and the bow-and-arrow symbol.
What remained of Uddhav's party was renamed Sena (UBT) and given a flaming torch as symbol.