Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, June 28: The Maharashtra chief minister and the ruling Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday issued an emotional appeal to his party deserters to have a talk with him “face to face” even as the rebel leader Eknath Shinde indicated his plans to return to Mumbai soon probably to meet the governor to demand a vote of confidence on the floor of the state Assembly.
Amidst the developments in the Sena camp, the BJP leader and the former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, believed to be waiting in the wings to join the new ministry formation fray, reached Delhi where he met the party president JP Nadda discussing the Maharashtra developments and the role his party was expected to play in the coming days for the ouster of the three-party Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government and installation of it successor.
“Don’t fall prey to anyone’s missteps. The honour given to you by Shiv Sena cannot be found anywhere. If you come forward and speak, we will sort out the issues. As Shiv Sena party chief and family head, I am still worried about you. Come here for a dialogue,” Thackeray said in his appeal to the rebels to return immediately to Mumbai from Guwahati where they are camping for the last one week or so. His appeal, however, does not seem to have cut much ice with the rebels with some of them, including a former minister Uday Samant said they were with Shinde and they believed they were “very much” with “Balasaheb’s Shiv Sena.”
Eknath Shinde, who has caused the Shiv Sena to fold in on itself, is headed to Mumbai -finally. His travel plans suggest that he’s ready to fuel the next big move against Uddhav Thackeray – probably a no-confidence vote which would force Thackeray to prove that his government has not been dwarfed to a minority.
Team Thackeray had on Monday sought an order from the Supreme Court not to allow a no confidence vote till a decision was made on the deputy speaker’s notices to the 16 rebel MLAs for disqualification for which the apex court had extended the deadline till July 12. The Supreme Court, however, did not issue any order on the confidence vote stating that the issue could be considered when any such move was made.
Perhaps in recognition of this, Thackeray sent a letter on Tuesday to the 40 rebel MLAs from his own party. “Come back to Mumbai, let’s talk, we’ll find a way (out),” read Thackeray’s emotional appeal to Camp Shinde. Thackeray and his team – about 15 of the party’s 55 MLAs – have repeatedly said if the Sena chief had a face-to-face audience with those who have rejected him as their chief, the chasm can be bridged. It is to guard against that Shinde has quarantined his entourage in the North East since last Wednesday.
Shinde while stating that he would return to Mumbai soon and that his faction was taking “Balasaheb’s Shiv Sena forward,” he ridiculed the official camp’s claims that more than 20 of the rebels were “in touch” with the chief minister, he said false information was being spread in public on MLAs being in touch with Sena leaders. This came after, Shiv Sena MP and spokesman Sanjay Raut claimed that the party was hopeful of the return of a few MLAs, whom the party did not consider rebels as they were still in touch with them.
At the Guwahati hotel, the BJP has been given visiting rights, a tell-tale sign of its intricate involvement in the crisis that seeks to collapse Thackeray’s government. Shinde and his posse have said that the Sena has been betrayed by its now three-year-old alliance with the Congress and Sharad Pawar’s party in Maharashtra; its authentic self, they say, belongs with the BJP, its partner of 30 years till 2019.
It was then that Mr Thackeray, smarting from what he saw as an undermining of the Sena by the BJP, formed a new combo, one that had the numbers to form the government and that was conceived of and supervised by Pawar. But since then, Camp Shinde alleges, the Sena has diluted its focus on Hindutva, and has often sold itself short in order to help its allies, especially in elections where Sena MLAs were urged to support candidates from partner parties.
It was after one of those elections last week that Shinde headed out of Mumbai on a bus with a band of about 20 MLAs. They were escorted by the Gujarat police to a Surat hotel. After Thackeray’s aides managed to meet a few of the rebels, the group was loaded onto a plane for its current digs in Guwahati.
On Monday the Supreme Court said the rebel MLAs cannot be disqualified for anti-party actions, which was what Mr Thackeray’s team had sought. Instead, Camp Shinde has till July 12 to explain its stand. Separately, Shinde has filed his own petition for party posts to be appointed by him and not by Thackeray, who, he says, now holds sway over a tiny corner of the Sena.
Shinde has also claimed that he – or his team, at any rate – was “the true promoter of the ideology” of Bal Thackeray, who was the Chief Minister’s father and founder of the Shiv Sena. Shinde’s next step will likely involve a meeting with Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari to request a vote in the assembly to determine Thackeray’s strength.
Meanwhile, the Governor has asked the State chief secretary to provide complete information of all Government Resolutions (GRs) and circulars issued by the state government from June 22-24 when the government functioning came to a grinding halt following revolt within the Sena, according to a letter by his Principal Secretary Santosh Kumar, a directive coming in the middle of the current political crisis.
The direction to provide information comes after the departments — mostly controlled by ruling allies NCP and the Congress —- issued government orders for the release of funds worth hundreds of crores from June 22-24 for various development-related works.