Guwahati: Maharashtra Tourism Minister Aaditya Thackeray claimed on Monday that 15 to 20 Shiv Sena MLAs who have defected are in contact with him and have pleaded with the party to fly them back to Mumbai from Guwahati, where they are staying in a hotel with Cabinet minister Eknath Shinde, whose rebellion has plunged the MVA government into a serious crisis.
Addressing Shiv Sena workers in Karjat, on outskirts of Mumbai, Thackeray, who has been putting out fires to rescue the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government. He claimed that every member of the party sees the current situation as an opportunity rather than a problem.
The dirt is no longer there. In reference to the breakaway MLAs, Thackeray added, “Now we can do something positive.” Before the uprising of June 21, according to the Shiv Sena leader, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s son, there were rumours that changes will be made in the party which controls the MVA along with the NCP and the Congress.
Nine ministers and the majority of Sena MLAs have revolted against the party, endangering the stability of the two-and-a-half-year-old government. The rebel movement, according to the Sena, has kidnapped or forcibly taken some lawmakers. A total of 15 to 20 MLAs is in contact with us. He claimed that they called him and Shiv Sainiks and begged us to bring the people back from Guwahati. He claimed that their predicament is similar to that of a prisoner, first in Surat (where the rebels arrived after arriving in Mumbai last week), then in Guwahati.
Out of the 55 Sena MLAs, Shinde has stated that he has the support of more than 30. Without using the Sena strongman’s name, Thackeray criticised some leaders for being blindly trusted, and the unfortunate aspect is that these individuals kept getting elevated within the group. It was like “cleaning the ‘nullahs’ and garbage before the arrival of monsoon,” he claimed, when the MLAs left the party.