MORE SENA MLA/MP REBELS LIKELY TO SWITCH SIDES

Mumbai: Seven more Uddhav Thackeray loyalist MLAs and a whopping 20 Members of Parliament (including Shiv Sena, Congress, NCP and independents MPs) have opened back-room parleys with BJP’s Maharashtra Chanakya Devendra Fadnavis over the last few days, even as one more Sena MLA joined the Eknath Shinde camp on Monday.

When asked about this, Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis did not accept or deny the fresh hobnobbing of MLAs and MPs but noted that the Sena only had 18 MPs. A senior BJP leader, however, told First India, “BJP’s Maharashtra Chanakya will never openly talk about ongoing operations like ‘Lotus’ that just bore fruit and returned him and the Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction to power in Maharashtra. The state has reverted to our natural alliance, which was hijacked into an unnatural and hybrid political for mation of the Maha Vikas Aghadi for the past 2.5 years.”

In addition to the remaining Sena’s public figures, Fadnavis has also offered some political advice to MNS Chief Raj Thackeray. “It is the most opportune time for the MNS, when the Uddhav Thackeray camp is at its lowest, to launch an all-out attack to ensure that his part fights for each and every seat in the forthcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections,” Fadnavis told a select bunch of news persons on Sunday, immediately after his blue-eyed boy Rahul Narvekar was elected Speaker of the Legislative Assembly.

“Fadnavis’s political gameplan is clear. He is seeking to blunt any possible sympathy that the Uddhav-led faction will seek to derive from voters in the forthcoming municipal elections, particularly in Mumbai and Thane, by empowering CM Eknath Shinde who was in the Sena. Additionally, he is goading Raj Thackeray to launch a political drive to capture disillusioned Hindutva voters who may feel a similar sense of displacement d in remaining with the UT camp and thus vote for the MNS party,” a senior BJP leader said. The BJP seeks to improve on its tally of 83 councillors, against the Sena’s 85 seats bagged in the 2017 BMC polls. Diving Marathi Hindutva voters between the Shinde faction and Raj Thackeray factions against the Uddhav faction may spell sweet success for the BJP to win the civic polls, the BJP feels.