Mahayuti vs MVA: the knives are out

Fearing arrest, Fadnavis had split Shiv Sena: Raut

The political war of words between the ruling Mahayuti and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA))peaked on Tuesday, with Shiv Sena (UBT) MP and chief spokesperson Sanjay Raut claiming that the then senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis had, fearing his imminent arrest, split the original Shiv Sena and pulled down the Uddhav Thackeray government.)

Raut was responding to a claim by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde that the Thackeray government had ordered a probe against several BJP leaders, including Fadnavis, Girish Mahajan, Prasad Lad, Ashish Shelar)and Pravin Darekar and was preparing to arrest them.)Shinde told a section of the media recently that Thackeray had wanted to arrest Fadnavis in the phonetapping case.

However, sources in the BJP pooh-poohed Raut’s claim by stating that the Shiv Sena split because of massive resentment against the leadership of Uddhav Thackeray. Senior leaders like Eknath Shinde and others were routinely humiliated and this was the reason for their revolt in June 2022.

“If 36 MLAs of a party decide to take the risk of revolting when it is in power, then certainly the discontent must be very deep in that organisation.)Uddhav first wanted his son Aaditya to be made the CM, but Sharad Pawar shot down the idea and then suggested that Uddhav himself become the)CM though he completely lacked administrative experience. Uddhav was sworn in in November, 2019 and before he could settle down, the)state was in the grip of the pandemic. Uddhav lost touch with his MLAs and cadres.

That was when Fadnavis smelt a grand opportunity to dethrone Uddhav from office and form an alliance government with Eknath Shinde. This had nothing to do with the phone-tapping incident,” a senior BJP leader told the FPJ, on condition of anonymity.

Fadnavis, in his capacity as the CM (2014’19), had allegedly got the then state intelligence chief, Rashmi Shukla, to tap the phones of several opposition leaders. Two FIRs were later registered against Shukla, who is the current DGP of Maharashtra, which were quashed by the Bombay High Court.

Raut predicted that the BJP would be trounced in the Lok Sabha elections and the new government would reopen all the cases filed earlier against BJP leaders and Shinde, and proceed against them. “If you can arrest our leaders, can’t we touch leaders of your political party?” he asked the BJP.

Meanwhile, the BJP is planning to upset the MVA applecart by getting city police and the ED to proceed against two senior Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders, with a view to weaken the opposition.