Mumbai Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut said that the party president Uddhav Thackeray would continue as the chief minister of Maharashtra for the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi’s (MVA) remaining two-and-half year term.
He denied that Thackeray had promised to support Kolhapur royal family scion Yuvraj Sambhajiraje Chhatrapati’s bid as an independent nominee in the Rajya Sabha elections.
Raut, who is on a two-day organisational tour of Kolhapur, was speaking to reporters on Saturday. “Uddhav Thackeray will be the chief minister for the full five-year term…there is unanimity in the MVA on it,” said Raut.
He further said, “It is wrong to raise questions on the credibility of the chief minister. It was the Shiv Sena’s seat, and it was already decided that a Shiv Sena candidate would contest.” He added that the chief minister told Sambhajiraje that he would speak to his colleagues and then decide about him (Sambhajiraje) contesting as a Sena-supported independent.
On Friday, Sambhajiraje, whose term as a nominated Rajya Sabha MP is coming to an end next month, had withdrawn his bid to enter the upper house of Parliament as an independent with the Sena’s support, and charged Thackeray with not keeping his word to support him. The Shiv Sena had sought the royal contest as a party nominee. It has decided to nominate Raut and its Kolhapur district chief Sanjay Pawar from the two seats in its quota. Sambhajiraje’s charge had led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president Chandrakant Patil to link this to Thackeray’s claim that the BJP had promised to share the chief minister’s post with the Sena.
“Nationwide, the royals who are in politics have had to join some party or the other. Even Maharana Pratap’s descendants are in a political party,” Raut stated, adding that Sambhajiraje had refused to concede the Shiv Sena’s proposal to contest as an official nominee of the party.
Raut charged that the BJP was engaged in “opposition for the sake of opposition,” and had even criticised the MVA’s “pro-people” decisions.
Meanwhile, Chhatrapati Shahu, who is Sambhajiraje’s father and the titular head of the Kolhapur royal family, contradicted his son. “This (refusal of a Rajya Sabha nomination) has nothing to do with the royal family. This was denied at a personal level,” he said, adding that “there is no question of the royal family being insulted. This is politics.”
Shahu Maharaj said that he had opposed Sambhajiraje’s appointment to the Rajya Sabha in 2016 as a nominee of the President and questioned why he (Sambhajiraje) had to seek support of political parties for his bid to enter the house again, if he had plans to launch his own organisation-‘Swarajya’.
Reacting to this, Sambhajiraje said he had spoken the truth in his press conference, and added that he respected his father and hence would not react to his comments.