Rebellion in Sena: Not in contact with any party says Shinde

Mumbai: Shiv Sena's rebel leader Eknath Shinde made a dramatic statement on Friday that no national party is in contact with him. This comes as an exact contradiction to his Thursday statement that "a powerful national party" was backing his rebellion, gathering 37 Sena MLAs and nine independents, PTI reported.

Trying to amend his earlier statement, Shinde told a TV channel, "When I said a big power is backing us, I meant the power of Balasaheb Thackeray and (late Shiv Sena leader) Anand Dighe." He, a minister himself in the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharastra, was replying to the channel's question of whether it was BJP which is the "national party" backing his rebellion.

Further to the question of when the political crisis in Maharashtra will end, Shinde said that things would calm down after some time. When asked about Shiv Sena approaching the Assembly Deputy Speaker for action against the rebel MLAs, he said, "Out of 55 Shiv Sena MLAs, 40 have come with me to Guwahati. In a democracy, the majority and numbers count. So nobody has the right to take any action against us."

A video released by Shinde's Mumbai office on Thursday evening featured him speaking to the rebel MLAs and stating that they have the support of a "national party".

He was seen saying, "No matter what happens, we will win. As you said, that is a national party, a superpower. Pakistan...you know what happened. They have told me that the decision taken by us is historic. You have all the strength of ours. If you need anything, we will not let you down. This will be experienced whenever we will need any help."

Minutes later, NCP chief Sharad Pawar held a press conference in which he read out the names of national parties in the country and asked which entity other than the BJP could be behind this.

Shortly after, the head of the Nationalist Congress Party, an ally of MVA, Sharad Pawar, called a press meeting, read out the names of national parties in the country and asked which party other than BJP would offer the rebels help. He had slammed Shinde, saying, "The Maharashtra Assembly is where (the state) government's majority will be decided after a floor test and not Guwahati (where the rebel group is camping)."