Uddhav's Sena vs Eknath's Sena: How Maharashtra's political map changed in two weeks

NEW DELHI: A little under a month ago, the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government was placed comfortably in the Maharashtra assembly. It had a total of 153 MLAs in the House and the Shiv Sena was leading the pack with 55 legislators.

However, a silent rebellion by Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde turned the tables on the Uddhav government within days.

The Shiv Sena supremo not only ended up vacating the chief minister's chair but also lost over 2/3rd of his party's MLAs to the Shinde camp.



The battle of loyalties
After numerous claims and counter-claims about the exact number of MLAs each side has, the final figure became clear on Sunday during the election of the assembly speaker.

Both the Thackeray and Shinde camps had issued whips to all Shiv Sena 55 MLAs. One MLA, Ramesh Latke, had died of cardiac arrest earlier this year.

The Shinde camp was able to get BJP candidate Rahul Narwekar elected with 164 votes in the assembly.

From TOI+

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• MLAs letter explains how Uddhav lost the plot
• Why Uddhav decided never to trust BJP again
• What if Uddhav's softness is tactical

The 16 Shiv Sena MLAs from the Thackeray camp voted for its candidate, Rajan Salvi.

On the other hand, the Shinde camp, which now calls itself Shiv Sena Balasaheb, had as many as 39 MLAs in its ranks.



The number went up to 40 on Monday when Santosh Bangar, an MLA from Kalamnuri, switched over to the Shinde camp during the trust vote in the Maharashtra assembly.

Thus, the strength of the Uddhav camp now stands at just 15, which includes his son and Worli MLA Aaditya Thackeray.

Notably, nearly half of the 15 MLAs who have stayed with Uddhav are from constituencies that fall in Mumbai.

They include Aaditya Thackeray (Worli), Ajay Vinayak Choudhari (Shivadi), Prakash Vaikunth Phaterpekar (Chembur), Ramesh Gajanan Korgaonkar (Bhandup West), Ramesh Latke (Andheri East), Raut Sunil Rajaram (Vikhroli) and Ravindra Dattaram Waikar (Jogeshwari East).

Meanwhile, except a few pockets in western and northern Maharashtra, the Shinde camp pretty much has MLAs from across the state where Shiv Sena won power in 2019.

Now, with CM Eknath Shinde firmly at the helm, the next frontier will be the tussle for the reins of the party founded by Bal Thackeray.