Sena’s Eknath Shinde goes unreachable with 11 MLAs day after BJP won  MLC elections, putting Uddhav govt in peril

Shiv Sena leader and urban development minister Eknath Shinde and 11 of his party’s MLAs, who are rumoured to be loyal to him, have been incommunicado since Monday evening amid the political fallout from the Sena-NCP-Congress government of Maharashtra’s defeats in the MLC elections.

According to reports, Shinde and the other MLAs are hiding out in a five-star hotel in Surat, Gujarat. At 7 p.m. on Monday, according to sources, they boarded a chartered jet for the city.

After the state’s June 10 Rajya Sabha elections, the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi alliance experienced another shock when the opposition BJP managed to elect Chandrakant Handore, the Congress’ first choice candidate, as an MLC.

Despite not having enough votes, all five of the BJP’s nominees were elected, while the MVA also won five seats. From the total of 11 candidates running for 10 seats, the primary struggle for the tenth seat between Congress’ Bhai Jagtap and the BJP’s Prasad Lad came as a stunner as both won. Congress’ first pick Handore suffered an unexpected setback.

Sena, NCP, and Congress are concerned about Shinde’s relocation to Surat because the BJP is rumoured to have received 20 more votes in the MLC elections and is 11 votes short of the number required to topple the Uddhav Thackeray government.