Mumbai: The Shiv Sena that recently faced a rebellion, huge enough to de-seat the party president Uddhav Thackeray from the post of the chief minister and take away 39 MLAs, saw the start of yet another rebellion, when only 12 Members of Parliament from Lok Sabha and two Rajya Sabha MPs attended a meeting called by Uddhav on Monday. The party has 19 MPs in the Lok Sabha.
The meeting was called by Uddhav Thackeray at his residence Matoshree in Mumbai on Monday afternoon, it was to know whom the Shiv Sena MPs wanted to vote for during the Presidential elections.
Sources claim it was a high voltage meeting, firstly with the absence of five Lok Sabha MPs and then all with hardly one exception speaking in the same language.
According to Hemant Godse, the Shiv Sena MP from Nashik, the meeting was called by Uddhav Thackeray to know whom the Member of Parliament wanted to vote for the Presidential elections.
The election is scheduled for July 18, and has two candidates in the fray, Draupadi Murmu is the NDA nominee, whereas Yashwant Sinha is the joint opposition nominee.
Godse said, “Almost all the MPs present in the meeting openly expressed their opinion that we should all vote and get the first woman from the tribal community elected as the President of India.”
According to Godse, in the meeting, it was clearly stated that in the past Balasaheb Thackeray took different stands during the Presidential polls. Godse was referring to instances where the Shiv Sena party voted for non NDA candidates when they were in alliance with NDA, Godse hinted that this time around also a similar thing can happen, where the party can vote for an NDA nominee while they are not part of the NDA.
“Uddhav ji heard us all, and he will take a decision and make a public announcement in a day or two,” said Godse.
Godse claimed that barring a very few MPs most MPs who remained absent had informed Uddhav Thackeray about reasons why they couldn’t attend the meeting.
We also asked him whether rumours of Sanjay Raut leaving the meeting in a huff were true, Godse denied the same, he even claimed that Rajan Vichare who was recently appointed as the leader of the party replacing Bhavan Gawli in Lok Sabha attended the meeting. Rajan Vichare represents Thane constituency which is a stronghold of Eknath Shinde, the chief minister of Maharashtra.
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