Team Thackeray Caves, Says Ready To Quit Government: 10 Facts

The Shiv Sena today said it would consider exiting the Maharashtra alliance with Sharad Pawar’s NCP and Congress but only if the rebels returned “in 24 hours” – a huge climbdown as the rebel group led by Eknath Shinde gained more numbers.

Here are the top 10 updates on this big story:

“We are ready to walk out of MVA (Maha Vikas Aghadi) government in Maharashtra, but party rebels should return to Mumbai (from Guwahati) in 24 hours,” Sanjay Raut, who is Shiv Sena’s chief spokesperson, said.

Mr Raut said the MLAs should “discuss the issue with Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray” and added, “Don’t write letters on Twitter and WhatsApp.”

Eknath Shinde, camping in Guwahati with around 41 MLAs, has demanded the Sena break its alliance with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party, or NCP, saying that Shiv Sena leaders suffered the most in the last two-and-a-half years of the coalition’s rule.

Deepak Kesarkar, the latest to join the party’s rebel camp, said no one wanted Uddhav Thackeray to resign as Chief Minister of Maharashtra. “Instead, we want him to get into an alliance with the BJP and form a new government with a natural ally,” he told NDTV.

The rebel MLAs have also accused the Maharashtra Chief Minister of shutting his doors to them and keeping them waiting for hours. “We were denied entry to the Chief Minister’s house for 2.5 years,” wrote Sanjay Shirsat, one of the MLAs in Guwahati with the rebels.

“As of yesterday (Eknath) Shinde had 37 Shiv Sena MLAs. Today I along with three others from Shiv Sena and one independent MLA reached here. Two to three are expected to reach in the next few hours,” Mr Kesakar told Media.

Uddhav Thackeray is reduced to a minority chief in the party founded and led for decades by his father, Bal Thackeray. Only 13 MLAs were present at a meeting called by him today, sources told Media. “When they (the MLAs) come to Mumbai, you will get to know, (it) will soon be revealed, in what circumstances, pressure these MLAs left us,” said Sanjay Raut.

The Congress and Sharad Pawar’s party – the alliance partners of Shiv Sena in Maharashtra – had suggested that Eknath Shinde be named as Chief Minister as a way out of the huge political crisis that has engulfed the ruling coalition, sources said.

With the last two-and-a-half years of the coalition’s existence at stake, Mr Thackeray on Wednesday mentioned his father and party founder Balasaheb Thackeray as he made an emotional address to rebels. “If my own people don’t want me as Chief Minister, he should walk up to me and say so… I’m ready to resign… I am Balasaheb’s son, I am not after a post,” Uddhav Thackeray — who tested positive for Covid — said in a Facebook address on Wednesday evening.

The BJP says the political crisis in Maharashtra is the Shiv Sena’s internal matter and that the party is not staking claim to form a government in the state. “We haven’t spoken to Eknath Shinde. This is Shiv Sena’s internal matter. BJP has nothing to do with this. We’re not staking claim to form the government,” Union Minister Raosaheb Patil Danve, who met party leader Devendra Fadnavis, told the media.