Last month on this day, Uddhav Thackeray resigned as chief minister of Maharashtra after 40 of Shiv Sena’s 54 MLAs rebelled against him under the leadership of party’s Thane strongman Eknath Shinde. Eknath Shinde’s bid to take over the Shiv Sena. Shinde’s rebellions are unstoppable and they are hell bent on bringing down the Thackeray legacy.
Eknath Shinde sought to take control of the Shiv Sena party and corner Thackeray and his loyalists. This all has become even more desperate to escape the hitches that would have arisen because of the anti-defection law and second, to make it difficult for Thackeray to revive the party which is directly related to the survival of his faction. Under the provisions of the anti-defection law, any nonaligned faction has to merge with any of the existing parties in the assembly after defecting from the parent party. It means the Shinde faction would have had to merge with BJP or any other party to prevent disqualification under the law. If Shinde has to join BJP, then he would not be able to take independent decisions.
These days, Eknath Shinde greeting the old guards of Shiv Sena to claim his ownership over the party. A few days back he had met MP Gajanan Kirtikar and yesterday he met veteran Shiv Sena leaders Manohar Joshi and Liladhar Dake. The purpose of these meetings of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde is to make a dent in the national executive of Shiv Sena. So that Uddhav Thackeray will come in minority. Thackeray will be left with Aditya Thackeray, Subhash Desai, Diwakar Raote, Sanjay Raut and Chandrakant Khaire.
The roles of Anant Geete and Anandrao Adsul are overwhelming. The Shinde faction and the BJP will soon have an electoral alliance. The Shiv Sena faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the Bharatiya Janata Party will form an alliance and contest the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) elections. This alliance will also contest the elections of Mumbai Municipal Corporation, which is dominated by Shiv Sena for the last 25 years. The expansion of the cabinet of Eknath Shinde and the BJP government will be done before August 3.
That’s why those aspiring to become ministers have intensified the fielding. Several dozen people are willing to become ministers. Some people have faith in the attendance of Delhi Durbar, while some are making rounds of Mumbai Durbar. Ramdas Kadam is likely to go on Legislative Council. Ramdas Kadam’s claim on the Legislative Council seat vacated by the resignation of former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. At present one more seat in the Legislative Council has fallen vacant with 12 MLAs appointed by the Governor.
