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‘Thaw with Shinde, signal for patch-up with BJP’ — why some Sena MPs want to back Droupadi Murmu

Some Shiv Sena MPs, says an insider, are worried that since the party broke from the NDA, no work has happened on the ground.

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Mumbai: Following a split in the Shiv Sena, some of the party’s MPs have urged their chief Uddhav Thackeray to reconcile with those who rebelled against him under Eknath Shinde’s leadership and keep the doors open for a patch up with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Three Sena MPs spoke to ThePrint on condition of anonymity and said that a few of the party’s Lok Sabha parliamentarians from Maharashtra have been having meetings in small groups to strategise for a reconciliation and they feel that backing Droupadi Murmu, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) presidential candidate, as against Yashwant Sinha, the opposition’s candidate, could be a good first step towards signaling a thaw in relations.

Two of the three MPs also attended a meeting called by Thackeray at Matoshree, his residence in suburban Mumbai, Monday to discuss the upcoming presidential election on 18 July.

They said that while Monday’s discussion was mainly focused on the presidential poll, some MPs also spoke to Thackeray on the sidelines, telling him that the party will benefit from a patch up with Shinde, now Maharashtra Chief Minister.

“Some party MPs feel the Shiv Sena should ally with the BJP again,” said one of the MPs. “But first, we feel we should mend ties with the Shinde camp. They are all our people. A Shiv Sainik [Shinde] is now CM, though it all happened under circumstances one didn’t expect…. We mentioned it to Uddhav saheb on the sidelines.”

“We are taking steps at our level to bridge the gap between the two groups,” he added.

A total of 40 MLAs rebelled against the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition government last month, causing the regime to fall. Under the leadership of Shinde, the MLAs then formed a government with the BJP end June.

The MVA government comprises the Shiv Sena and its former rivals, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress.

While there have been talks that several MPs, too, may lend support to the Shinde camp, 13 of the party’s 18 Lok Sabha MPs in Maharashtra were present at Matoshree for the meeting Monday. Of the five who were absent, two — Shinde’s son Shrikant Shinde and Bhavana Gawali — have already joined the Shinde camp.

The remaining three — Sanjay Jadhav, Sanjay Mandlik and Hemant Patil — told ThePrint that they could not attend due to “genuine inconveniences” and had informed Thackeray about it.


Also read: Shinde or Uddhav, which is the real Sena? All eyes on next chapter of Maharashtra row


Demand to back Droupadi Murmu

Another of the three MPs ThePrint spoke to said that what MPs want right now is to get the Shiv Sena and the BJP back together.

“We fought the last two elections [2014, 2019] together. Some are worried that we got elected during a Modi wave and after breaking away from the NDA no work has happened on the ground. There is a lot of resentment against the MVA,” he said.

“The doors at the top are closed to us, and seeing that alliances are happening just for political calculations, the doors at the bottom, our voters’ doors, may also close. It is people like us who get stuck in between. What we want is a reconciliation and the idea is to use the issue of backing Murmu to get the two parties [Shiv Sena and BJP] talking again,” he added.

He also said that a few MPs are having frequent meetings to figure out what their next steps could be to bury the hatchet with the Shinde camp and extend an olive branch to the BJP.

Following the Monday meeting, Sena MP Gajanan Kirtikar, a party old-timer considered a Thackeray loyalist, confirmed to reporters that MPs, by and large, demanded that the party should back her as a candidate in the election next week.

“Although she is the NDA’s candidate, she is a woman from the tribal community and MPs requested that the Shiv Sena’s vote should go to her. Uddhavji Thackeray will take a decision about it,” Kirtikar said.

Prior to the meeting, at least two Sena MPs — Rahul Shewale and Rajendra Gavit — had even written to Thackeray saying the party should vote for Murmu.

The third Sena MP that ThePrint spoke to, said that Shewale and Gavit’s letters were perceived as their complicit support to the Shinde camp, “but that’s not true”.

“Gavit’s constituency (Palghar) is predominantly tribal. Shewale, too, received a representation from a tribal community in his constituency (Mumbai South Central), so they wrote to Uddhavsaheb,” he said.

“All MPs in the meeting on Monday unanimously decided that they will follow whatever decision Uddhavsaheb takes. He will decide in a couple of days,” he added.

(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)


Also read: Power, party, dignity, father’s legacy — what all Uddhav Thackeray is losing in Maharashtra


 

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