On June 23, three more Shiv Sena MLAs have reached Radisson Blu Hotel in Guwahati, Assam, where Eknath Shinde, the rebel leader of the party, is holed up. Shinde had been staying in Surat earlier with other rebel leaders of the party and flew to Guwahati on June 22. In a statement, Shinde has called the Maha Vikas Agadi (MVA) alliance between Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena an ‘unnatural alliance’.
Reportedly, four other MLAs, Chandrakant Patil, Yogesh Kadam, Manjula Gavit and Gulabrao Patil, reached Guwahati late at night on Wednesday. The exact number of MLAs supporting Shinde remained unclear. Notably, Shinde claimed on Wednesday that 34 MLAs from his party supported him and passed a resolution to reinstate him as leader of the Shiv Sena legislative party. The announcement by Shinde came a day after he was removed from the party leadership post.
Amid the political stir, Chief Minister of Maharashtra Uddhav Thackeray has left his official residence ‘Varsha’ along with his family members. The reports of him leaving the official residence came hours after he issued a statement that he was ready to step down from CM post if the rebels return to Mumbai and asks for his removal. He said, “If any MLA wants me to not continue as the CM, I am ready to take all my belongings from Varsha Bungalow (official residence of the CM) to Matoshri.”
In the resolution signed by the rebels, it was stated that the ideology of Shiv Sena was compromised in the last two years. They also expressed their dismay over alleged ‘corruption in the government’ referring to the cases of Nawab Malik and Anil Deshmukh who are currently lodged in jail.
The whole political unrest in Maharashtra started after reports of cross-voting during MLC elections, where the BJP won five seats despite lacking enough numbers in the assembly. Eknath Shinde, along with other rebel leaders, went untraceable after the results. Later it was reported that the rebel leaders of Shiv Sena were lodged in a hotel in Surat from where they shifted to Assam.