"Messages Can Go Through": Sanjay Raut Adds To Shinde Sena Hotel Suspense

As Shiv Sena chief Eknath Shinde keeps his 29 corporators in a five-star hotel, apparently to foil any poaching attempt after NDA's victory in the BMC polls, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) has added to the suspense and said that the "game is on".

Sanjay Raut, Rajya Sabha MP and a close aide of Uddhav Thackeray, has claimed that a "lot is happening behind the scenes" and that any majority, no matter how big, is "fickle". Adding a swipe, he has said members of Team Thackeray are going to the five-star hotel, where Shinde's corporators are holed up, for lunch. "They shouldn't suspect us," Raut has said.

NDTV reached out to Raju Waghmare, Shiv Sena leader and a close aide of Eknath Shinde. "Has Sanjay Raut started seeing a Jyotish now?" He keeps on lying regularly," the source said. Asked why Team Shinde's corporators are now in a hotel, he replied, "There is a group of looters who have looted Mumbai for so long and will now try and loot our people too. Hence, we've kept them in the hotel." Asked if Team Shinde is trying to protect its corporators from its arch-rival Sena (UBT) or its ally, BJP, Waghmare said, "We are not afraid of anyone, it's just prevention, from everyone."

Waghmare said Sena (UBT) must accept they are losing. "They should accept that Mumbai's Marathi Manoos has thrown them out." He said the leaders of the Mahayuti will sit together and discuss which party's corporator will be put in the Mayor's seat. "(Sena) UBT must not forget that when they were with BJP, the BJP had more corporators but still gave a chance to them to put their mayor on the seat," he said.

Waghmare said Shinde Sena has put its corporators in a hotel. "We don't want anybody to try to coerce them and anybody trying to convince our corporators. We fought the election properly. We want all formalities to be completed properly. That's why we kept our corporators in a secluded place," he said.

The BMC polls, held after 2017, saw the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP and its ally, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, win 89 and 29 seats, respectively. The Thackeray brothers, Uddhav and Raj, who fought in alliance with the NCP's Sharad Pawar faction, have won 72 seats together. While the BJP and Shinde Sena have the numbers to cross the majority mark in the 227-member House, the question of who the mayor will be is likely to dominate the discussions between the allies.

BMC has had a Sena Mayor for decades now and Shinde, whose mutiny split the Sena, will push for the Mayor post to bolster his claim that his faction is the real Shiv Sena. The BJP, on the other hand, will want to claim the mayor's post to make a political point because BMC has never had a BJP corporator as Mayor.

According to Raut, while Shinde has been insisting on a particular post, his party "is merely an appendage of the BJP". "They have kept their corporators confined. They broke MLAs earlier; now they have to lock up corporators," he said, referring to the 2022 mutiny that toppled the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government.

"Eknath Shinde is Deputy Chief Minister, yet he fears his corporators might be poached. What a huge farce," Raut said.

The Sena (UBT) leader has said that corporators of Eknath Shinde's party do not want a BJP Mayor in BMC. "Many of the corporators are new faces; they are Shiv Sainiks, and they do not want a BJP mayor."

In a cheeky remark, Raut said, "No matter how much you confine them, there are many means of communication; messages can still go through," he said, adding that "if God wills", a Mayor from their party can still take charge. Interestingly, Uddhav Thackeray too had made a divine intervention remark regarding the Mayor post, saying BMC can still have a Mayor from his party "if God wants".

"A lot is happening behind the scenes. We are watching calmly. Raj Thackeray has spoken to Uddhav Thackeray on the phone. Let me state a historical truth: no matter how big the majority, it is fickle, it keeps shifting from one side to another," he said.

Taking a swipe at the Mahayuti government, Raut said that Shinde's move to shift his corporators to a five-star hotel reflects the failure of law and order under the Devendra Fadnavis government.

"No one would want Mumbai to go with the BJP, except for Eknath Shinde. If Eknath Shinde rebelled for ideology, then others also have the right to do so. Devendra Fadnavis should intervene immediately and free those 29 corporators from the hotel. They have the right to breathe freely in Mumbai," he said.