Leaders of all Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) opposition parties, including the Congress, the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, besides the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) demanded on Wednesday that elections to the local civic and municipal bodies in Maharashtra be postponed until discrepancies in voters' lists are resolved.
BJP Member of Legislative Council (MLC) Pravin Darekar, who is known to be a confidante of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, said in Mumbai on Friday that not a single MLA will be left in Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, if Aaditya Thackeray begins to monitor the movements of his MPs and MLAs, to prevent them from defecting.
Hundreds of local-level workers from the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena and Congress, along with prominent Thackeray-led Sena leaders from Washim, Karanja, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, Akola, Bhiwandi, and Kalyan, joined the Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena party in the presence of Shinde himself, on Friday, giving a fillip to 'Operation Tiger'.
Targetting the Centre, Shiv Sena (UBT) President and former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday asked 'why does the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) need a 38-party National Democratic Alliance’ since it has the ED, I-T and CBI.
The faction had further sought removal of Eknath Shinde, Gulabrao Patil, Tanji Sawant, and Uday Samant from party posts.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led faction filed a petition in the apex court challenging the Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari's decision to invite Eknath Shinde to form government and also the Speaker's election and floor test. A vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari posted the matter for Monday, along with other pending pleas.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray's son and MNS president Amit Thackeray also slammed the Shinde-Fadnavis camp for the decision and said that he was shocked by the decision.
As per the sources, Maharashtra CM and Deputy CM Ajit Pawar will not be physically present in the Cabinet meeting today.
The decision was taken in public interest to ensure a smooth functioning of all departments and not hinder the decision-making process in view of the absence of the five cabinet ministers and four ministers of state, according to Thackeray.
Earlier, the MNS chief was planning to go on trip to Ayodhya on June 5, but last week he cancelled it, and was interpreted as a huge setback to the party.
