Digital Desk: Sanjay
Raut, a Shiv Sena MP and spokesperson for the party, claimed on Thursday that
the party is in communication with roughly 22 MLAs who have supported Eknath Shinde,
a rebel colleague and minister for Maharashtra. Additionally, the ruling Maha
Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition will prevail if a floor test is conducted.
The Sena MP continued by
demanding that the dissident MLAs return to Mumbai within "24 hours"
if they wanted the party to leave the MVA, which it shares with the Congress
and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). He continued, "We'll talk about
it, but have the guts to come back."
The Sena MP made the
remarks during a press conference when the party introduced Nitin Deshmukh and
Kailash Patil, two MLAs who had just returned to Mumbai from the camp of rebel
Shinde. While Patil said that numerous lawmakers intended to return to Mumbai,
Deshmukh asserted that there was a BJP plot to topple the MVA rule.
These developments came
as fresh photos and a video from Assam's Radisson Blu Hotel in Guwahati, which
is governed by the BJP, showed that Shinde is accompanied by 42 opposition
MLAs. There are seven Independents and 34 Sena MLAs in total.
To split the Sena and avoid
enforcement of the anti-defection statute, Shinde needs the cooperation of 37
of the party's 55 lawmakers. Earlier in the day, six additional MPs joined the
Shinde-led Sena.
Mangesh Kudalkar, Sanjay
Rathod, Deepak Kesarkar, Sada Sarvankar, and others joined the breakaway group
on Thursday.
In comparison to his
prior assertion that the Sena is in contact with 20 rebel leaders, Raut's claim
that the Sena is in contact with 22 MLAs from Shinde's camp is marginally more
accurate.
Uddhav Thackeray, the chief minister of Maharashtra, said he is prepared with his resignation letter and will quit even if one MLA says they don't trust him in his address to the western state on Wednesday. But he asked that the MLAs approach him and inform him of this.
After departing the official Maharashtra CM residence with his family, including state minister Aaditya Thackeray, he later relocated to the Thackeray family mansion, "Matoshree."
