Speculations about Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray (UBT) heading for a split took a definitive turn on Thursday (June 18) with six of its nine Lok Sabha MPs skipping an emergency parliamentary party meeting in New Delhi.
The six ‘rebels’, who constitute two-thirds of the party’s Lok Sabha strength, are likely to defect to Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena on Saturday (June 20).
Rebels issued show-cause notice
The Sena (UBT) rebel camp, comprising Hingoli MP Nagesh Ashtikar, Dharashiv MP Omprakash Raje Nimbalkar, Yavatmal MP Sanjay Deshmukh, Parbhani MP Sanjay Jadhav, Mumbai North East MP Sanjay Dina Patil and Shirdi MP Bhausaheb Wakchaure, has been issued a show-cause notice by the party to explain their absence from the key meeting despite a whip being issued to them a day earlier, said Sanjay Raut, the party’s lone Rajya Sabha MP.
Also read: Operation Tiger buzz: Why Uddhav’s Sena is bracing for tough days | Capital Beat
Raut and the party’s Lok Sabha floor leader, Arvind Sawant, who have been parrying questions for nearly a week about a possible split in their party, told The Federal that “necessary proceedings to disqualify the six traitors under the anti-defection law will be initiated soon”.
‘Party to fight daylight murder of democracy’
Sawant, who submitted a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla a day earlier asserting that the Sena (UBT) remained united and urged him to ignore any contesting claim or request from party MPs to merge with another outfit, said his party is prepared to “fight against this daylight murder of democracy at every forum available to us; we will write to the Speaker again, we will go to the Supreme Court if necessary and we will take the fight to the streets and villages of Maharashtra”.
Sena (UBT) crisis unfolds amid TMC implosion
The turmoil in the Sena (UBT) comes within days of another constituent of the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC), witnessing mass defection of its 20 Lok Sabha MPs who have declared their merger with the obscure Tripura-based Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI).
There has been no change in the character of our party, no split or merger. If these traitors have claimed there is a merger, then they have to be disqualified under Paragraph 4 of the 10th Schedule because it clearly stipulates that for a merger.
The rebel MPs petitioned Birla last week, informing him of their decision to merge with the NCPI and requesting that they be granted a seating space in the Lower House separate from the remaining eight MPs of the TMC who chose to stay loyal to Mamata. The dissidents have decided to join the ruling National Democratic Alliance coalition led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Also read: Sanjay Raut alleges Rs 50 crore offered to Sena (UBT) MPs to defect
The Speaker is expected to meet TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee on Friday (June 19). During the meeting, the latter is likely to challenge the merger claim made by the aspiring NCPI MPs and formally demand their disqualification from the Lok Sabha for violating the anti-defection law.
Sena (UBT) faces silent mutiny
While the TMC rebellion had played out as a public spectacle for days before it embroiled the office of the Lok Sabha Speaker, the mutiny in the Sena (UBT) continues to be a clandestine affair.
The six Sena rebels are yet to make any public statement explaining the reasons behind their move. In fact, till late Wednesday (June 17) evening, Dina Patil had assiduously denied reports of joining the rebel camp and claimed that he would attend the parliamentary party meeting convened by Raut and Sawant.
Patil, however, did not turn up when Raut, Sawant, Mumbai South Central MP Anil Desai and Nashik MP Rajabhau Prakash Waje met at the Sena (UBT)’s parliamentary party office on Thursday.
Unlike the TMC rebels, who made a public show of their meetings with senior BJP leaders in the run-up to their formal declaration of a split from the party and then collectively met Birla to inform him of their decision to merge with the NCPI, the Sena (UBT) renegades continue to operate in the shadows.
Though sources close to the rebels claim that at least four of them, accompanied by Kalyan MP and Eknath’s son Shrikant Shinde, had met Birla on Wednesday morning and communicated their decision to merge with the Shiv Sena, there has been no official confirmation about this meeting either by the rebels or the Speaker’s office.
The secrecy surrounding the mutiny within the Sena (UBT), which Eknath’s aides have been calling “Operation Tiger”, has made it difficult to determine what provisions of the anti-defection law could apply to these six MPs.
Raut expresses Sena (UBT)’s tough stance
Raut, however, told The Federal that irrespective of the chronology of the rebellion and whether or not the six MPs had communicated their decision to merge with the Shiv Sena before Sawant’s petition to the Speaker, his party will seek their disqualification under the 10th Schedule.
Also read: After TMC, Shiv Sena (UBT) exodus, is Samajwadi Party heading towards a split?
“If they met the Speaker, why can’t they or the Speaker’s office say so publicly? We are very clear that they should be disqualified under the anti-defection law (10th Schedule) irrespective of whatever explanation they may have cited for their decision. There has been no change in the character of our party, no split or merger. If these traitors have claimed there is a merger, then they have to be disqualified under Paragraph 4 of the 10th Schedule because it clearly stipulates that for a merger, only two-thirds of parliamentary group cannot go (to another party) as they have to prove that the original party has split,” Raut told The Federal.
“If they are not claiming merger but joining the Shinde camp, then they have voluntarily given up membership of our party, and both Para 2 and Para 4 of the 10th Schedule will be invoked for disqualification. Let these traitors come out in public and say which provision they want to be disqualified under,” he added.
Rebel to join Sena on June 20?
Sources in the Eknath-led Shiv Sena claim that the six rebels could join their party formally on June 20, a day after the 60th foundation day of the original Shiv Sena, which was formed by the late Bal Thackeray, Uddhav’s father. The date is significant as it also marks four years of the rebellion by Eknath that eventually broke up the original Sena and forced Uddhav to step down as Maharashtra chief minister in June 2022.
Also read: TMC collapse: Has BJP solved one problem and created two new ones?
Eknath, who replaced Uddhav as chief minister following the split in the party, later claimed ownership of the original party. The Election Commission recognised the Eknath-led faction as the original Shiv Sena, while Uddhav was forced to adopt Sena (UBT) as his party’s name and the flaming torch as its poll symbol.
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