After receiving an overwhelming response to his first leg of Shiv Samvad Yatra after the collapse of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government following the Eknath Shinde-led rebellion, the Yuva Sena chief and former minister Aaditya Thackeray in the second leg will visit Kolhapur and hold rallies on August 1.
Aaditya’s visit is important as the two Shiv Sena MPs, Sanjay Mandlik and Dhairyashil Mane, along with MLAs Prakash Abitkar and independent MLA and minister of state Rajendra Patil-Yedravkar (who was supporting the Shiv Sena I MVA government) and Maharashtra State Planning Board executive chairman Rajesh Kshirsagar deserted the party to join Shinde camp.
Aaditya has chosen Kolhapur as he and the party chief Uddhav Thackeray were hurt by the manner in which the two MPs and legislators jumped ship to join hands with Shinde.
Both the MPs had held rallies in Thackeray’s support slamming Shinde and other legislators for the coup. In addition, the Thackerays have yet to digest the defeat of Kolhapur district chief Sanjay Pawar in the Rajya Sabha election held on June 10 in the wake of cross-voting. They were disappointed as Pawar was defeated by BJP’s third nominee Dhananjay Mandlik who won the election by luring disgruntled legislators from Shiv Sena and allies and also independents.
Aaditya will reach out to the traditional Shiv Sena supporters and the cadre who remained with the party after the coup by Shinde and 39 other party legislators.
Aaditya has already declared that he will regularly visit the constituencies of rebel MLAs and rebuild the party for their defeat. He has challenged the rebel MLAs to resign and face fresh elections.
Aaditya, during his Shiv Samvad Yatra held in various districts, including Thane, Nashik, Aurangabad and a couple of other districts lashed out at rebels terming them ‘’traitors’’ and claimed that 'this rebellion' has unmasked their hatred, jealousy and anger against us. The truth is thus coming out. It also means that all of them (rebels) used to lie when they claimed to have respect for the Thackeray family.
