Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Friday rejected claims that his faction would merge with the Congress.
“If we didn’t merge with the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] despite being an ally for 30 years, how can we merge with the Congress?” Thackeray asked at the party’s 60th foundation day event in Mumbai. “I fear the Maharashtra BJP might merge with the Shinde Sena.”
“We have had severe political differences with the Congress, but it never tried to destroy the Shiv Sena like the BJP is doing,” he added.
Thackeray said that he was willing to resign as the party chief if the workers did not have faith in him. However, he said that he had not lost his resolve to fight.
The comments came amid speculation that six of the Uddhav Sena’s nine Lok Sabha MPs could join the rival faction led by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
On Thursday, the six skipped a meeting of the Uddhav Sena’s parliamentary party. The meeting was attended by the other three MPs of the faction and its lone Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Raut.
On Friday, the party issued notices to the six MPs and gave them seven days to respond, failing which it may take disciplinary action.
The meeting was held a day after the Uddhav Sena alleged that its MPs were being offered Rs 15 crore each to join the Shinde Sena.
On Friday, Uddhav Thackeray offered an apology to voters who had elected the MPs who may switch sides.
On Wednesday, BJP MLA Ashishrao Deshmukh told ANI that he had “heard that Sanjay Raut wants all UBT MLAs and MPs to merge with Congress”.
“With this, Sharad Pawar will be appointed the leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, and Uddhav Thackeray will be appointed president of the Maharashtra Congress,” Deshmukh had claimed. “Sanjay Raut is working on this. Being upset with such a development, UBT MPs might have come to Delhi to meet Lok Sabha speaker.”
Sharad Pawar is the chief of the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) faction.
On Friday, Shinde hinted at a separate event that more legislators of the Uddhav Sena may join his party.
The six MPs who are speculated to be switching sides did not attend any of the two events.
The Shiv Sena had split in June 2022 after Shinde and 39 MLAs backing him rebelled against the Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition government that also comprised the undivided Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress.
After more than a week of political drama, Shinde had been sworn in as the chief minister with the backing of the BJP. He became the deputy chief minister after the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance comprising the Shinde Sena, the BJP and the Ajit Pawar-led faction of the NCP, retained power in the 2024 Assembly polls.
Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.
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