Troubleshooter to troublemaker

The Thackerays can only blame themselves for the revolt by Eknath Shinde

- DNYANESH JATHAR

THE SEEDS OF revolt in the Shiv Sena over the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi were sown even before the coalition was formed in 2019. Eknath Shinde, who was then the most important person in the party after Uddhav Thackeray, had urged the party leadership not to join hands with the ideologically incompatible Congress and Nationalist Congress Party. Thackeray ignored the advice, but he made Shinde swear he would remain loyal to the party. More than two and a half years later, Shinde has broken that promise. On June 21, he asked Thackeray over phone from a five-star hotel in Surat, Gujarat, to break ties with the Congress and the NCP. Shinde, who is urban development minister in Thackeray's cabinet, claimed support of 35 of the Sena's 55 members in the assembly.

The drama began unfolding on June 20, when the BJP's Prasad Lad defeated Congress candidate Chandrakant Handore in the Legislative Council elections. Just 10 days earlier, the BJP's Dhananjay Mahadik had defeated the Shiv Sena's Sanjay Jadhav in the Rajya Sabha polls. On both occasions the BJP candidates did not have the required votes, but sailed through with the help of independents and cross-voting from the Congress and the Shiv Sena.

A week before the Rajya Sabha elections, a delegation of MVA leaders NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal, Congress leader Sunil Kedar and Sena leader Anil Desai had met BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis and appealed to him for a consensus in the elections. Fadnavis told them if they allowed the BJP to retain three Rajya Sabha seats, the party would not field a candidate in the MLC polls. The MVA rejected the offer. The BJP fielded an extra candidate each to the Rajya Sabha and the MLC and both won. The BJP has 106 legislators. It got 123 votes in the Rajya Sabha elections and 134 in the MLC elections, as most of the independents and five MVA members (two of the Congress and three of the Shiv Sena) voted for BJP candidates.