Midnight flights to Delhi, fear of Congress merger: Inside Sena UBT MPs' revolt
Late-night flights to Delhi, a secret meeting with Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, and a letter to the Lok Sabha Speaker - the rebellion
Late-night flights to Delhi, a secret meeting with Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, and a letter to the Lok Sabha Speaker - the rebellion by six Sena UBT MPs was marked by a carefully coordinated movement away from the limelight. A second split in Uddhav Thackeray's Sena faction started taking shape shortly after midnight on June 16, sources said. It now seems almost inevitable, as only three of the party's nine Lok Sabha MPs attended a crucial meeting on Thursday despite a whip. Read Full Story The rebel MPs - Sanjay Jadhav, Sanjay Deshmukh, Omraje Nimbalkar, Bhausaheb Wakchaure, Nagesh Patil Ashtikar and Sanjay Dina Patil - had already skipped a meeting on June 14. Before that, they also skipped Aaditya Thackeray's birthday celebrations. FLURRY OF LATE-NIGHT ARRIVALS IN DELHI On June 16, the first MP to arrive in Delhi was Nagesh Ashtikar.
He came from Nanded by a private jet at around 1.30 am. Hours later, Sanjay Deshmukh and Sanjay Jadhav also reached Delhi from Nanded on a separate private jet. Wakchaure arrived from Hyderabad by a private jet, while Sanjay Dina Patil and Maharashtra minister Pratap Sarnaik reached Delhi later that night. Sources said Shiv Sena chief Eknath Shinde flew from Mumbai to Jaipur before arriving in Delhi around 3 am on June 16. Lok Sabha MP and Shinde's son, Shrikant, arrived early morning at around 4.30 am. Next came Omraje Nimbalkar, who travelled from Pune. The rebel MPs were then accommodated at a hotel in Noida, sources said. MEETING WITH LOK SABHA SPEAKER On June 17, Shrikant and Nimbalkar met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla at around 7 am. At around 10.20 am, the other five MPs met the Speaker and submitted a letter stating that they were merging with the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and requested that their seating be changed in the House.
In their letter, the rebel MPs said the leadership had moved away from the party ideology and senior leaders were planning to merge the Sena UBT with the Congress. Crucially, the rebel faction, with six out of nine MPs, has the two-thirds majority to avoid disqualification under the anti-defection law. After the meeting with the Speaker, the MPs left Delhi. Ashtikar went to Chennai and later visited Tirupati. Wakchaure travelled to Varanasi, while Deshmukh and Jadhav went to Ayodhya. Dina Patil returned to Mumbai, while Nimbalkar went back to Pune. The six rebel Shiv Sena UBT MPs are expected to meet Shinde on June 20, a day after Shiv Sena's foundation day. There, sources said, the MPs are likely to share details of their meeting with the Lok Sabha Speaker and release the letter explaining why they decided to break away from the Uddhav camp.
The BriefWire