“Shinde Faction Is Just A Group, Not A Party”: Team Thackeray Leader

Manisha Kayande, a spokeswoman for the Shiv Sena, attacked the Shinde group on Friday and said Chandrakant Patil, the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had abused her family. “During a rally in Pune, Chandrakanth Patil said, “Abuse my parents, but don’t abuse Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. Tell me, should it be appropriate in our society for someone to mistreat someone else’s family? Only Amit Shah and Narendra Modi are considered family by the BJP, and they are revered above their own families.

Ms. Kayande also criticised the BJP for allegedly “pulling” members of the Congress into its party to build administrations.

“BJP brings members from other parties, not only its own, to form governments. They established the government in Goa with the aid of eight Congressmen. They have demonstrated that they are not Hindutvawadis; rather, they are solely interested in forming a government, she claimed.

Further criticising the Eknath Shinde group for using the “bow and arrow” symbol, Ms. Kayande asserted that the Shiv Sena is the true party.

“CM Eknath Shinde wrote a letter to the Election Commission of India (ECI) Party Chief for getting the “Bow and Arrow”. The decision is pending in front of the Supreme Court and ECI. The faction left the party because someone told them to, but it doesn’t mean that the party is over. They are just a group and not a party, so they don’t have any rights over the symbol. We are the party for the last 56 years and Uddhav Thackeray is our Party Chief, who is leading us for many years,” she further said.

The decision to invite Eknath Shinde to form the government in Maharashtra, as well as the election of the Speaker and the floor test, were both challenged earlier by the Uddhav Thackeray-led side. Recently, they had disputed the Shinde group’s assertion that they were the “real Shiv Sena” when they approached the polling panel.

However, after the Uddhav Thackeray-led camp asserted that these MLAs are ineligible due to anti-party conduct, the Mr. Shinde faction informed the top court that the dispute was not “anti-party, but intra-party.”

The floor test in the Maharashtra Assembly scheduled for June 30 received approval from the top court on June 29. The bench had given notice regarding Prabhu’s appeal against the floor test after declining to block the Maharashtra Governor’s order for the then-Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to demonstrate his majority support on the House floor on June 30.

Uddhav Thackeray announced his resignation as chief minister following the order of the supreme court, and Eknath Shinde was later sworn in.

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