Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena suffered a setback in Nagpur after senior party leader Nitin Tiwari joined the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena along with several office-bearers.
Tiwari, who served as the Nagpur city chief of the Uddhav Thackeray faction, formally joined the Shinde camp in Mumbai in the presence of Shiv Sena MP Shrikant Shinde.
Several key functionaries also switched sides along with him, including the city secretary of Shiv Sena, the city chief of Yuva Sena and the city organiser of Kamgar Sena.
The development is being seen as a significant organisational blow to the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction in Nagpur, where the party is already facing internal challenges amid ongoing political realignments in Maharashtra.
Leaders Firmly With Party’: Sanjay Raut
The defection of several Shiv Sena leaders and office-bearers from Nagpur has come at a time when Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut had asserted that the party remained united and that its leaders were firmly standing with the organisation.
Raut had recently dismissed speculation surrounding an alleged “Operation Tiger” aimed at engineering a split among Shiv Sena (UBT) MPs. While the latest development involved city-level leaders rather than Members of Parliament, political observers believe it signals that the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena has begun expanding its influence within the Uddhav Thackeray faction at the grassroots level.
Notably, the tiger was the original election symbol of the undivided Shiv Sena and had been designed by party founder Bal Thackeray himself. The alleged campaign to attract leaders from the rival faction has therefore been dubbed “Operation Tiger.”
Earlier, Sanjay Raut had claimed that Shiv Sena (UBT) would counter its opponents through what he called “Operation Wolf,” apparently targeting the Eknath Shinde faction.
Meanwhile, questions around unity within the Uddhav Thackeray camp intensified after a meeting of party MPs held in Mumbai on Sunday saw limited physical attendance.
Out of nine MPs from the party, only four — Arvind Sawant, Anil Desai, Rajabhau Waje and Sanjay Patil — attended the meeting in person.
Addressing concerns over the absentees, Raut said MPs Om Prakash Raje Nimbalkar, Bhausaheb Wakchaure, Nagesh Bapurao Patil Ashtikar and Sanjay Deshmukh had joined the discussions virtually, while Sanjay Jadhav had spoken to Uddhav Thackeray over the phone.
Raut maintained that there was no dissatisfaction within the parliamentary wing and insisted that all MPs continued to support Shiv Sena (UBT).
