Guwahati: Rebel Shiv Sena MLAs left their hotel in Guwahati on Wednesday. They boarded a charter bus at the airport about 5 pm and will travel to Goa before arriving in Mumbai tomorrow, when the assembly will vote on whether to support the Uddhav Thackeray-led government.
The MLAs under the leadership of Eknath Shinde had also gotten on buses at 10 in the morning, but they arrived back after seeing the well-known Kamakhya Temple because the chartered flight has been rescheduled to 6 pm. They already had a hotel reservation in Goa, according to sources. However, they had previously stated that they would wait for the Supreme Court’s ruling on a petition contesting the trust vote. They have now fled even though no order has yet been given.
The Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government is being challenged by the 40 MLAs, who have been staying at a five-star hotel in Guwahati for the past week.
Team Thackeray has gone to the Supreme Court against Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari’s order to prove majority in the House at 11 am tomorrow. They say the order is illegal because 16 rebel MLAs have yet to respond to the Deputy Speaker’s notices for their possible disqualification. Governor Koshyari ordered the test of strength a day after BJP leaders met him and told him that the Thackeray-led coalition has lost its majority.