Another Shiv Sena leader and Uddhav Thackeray aide Uday Samant has left for Guwahati from Surat, to join the rebel MLAs camp led by Eknath Shinde. Samant, who is an MLA from Ratnagiri in Maharashtra’s Konkan region, has left for Guwahati from Surat on Sunday. He is also a minister in the MVA government led by Uddhav Thackeray. He has become the 9th minister to join Eknath Shinde led rebel group.
Maharashtra Minister of Higher & Technical Education Uday Samant leaves for Guwahati from Surat.#MaharashtraPoliticalcrisis pic.twitter.com/RtnowRMB5f
— ANI (@ANI) June 26, 2022
As reported by ANI, Samant was seen taking a private Jet from the Surat airport to join the rebel camp of Eknath Shinde-led MLAs stationed at Radisson Blu Hotel in Guwahati Assam. Uday Samant is serving as the Cabinet Minister for the Ministry of Higher Education in the incumbent Maha Vikas Aghadi Government. He is the eight Maharashtra minister to join the rebel camp.
The details of Uday Samant’s flight from Surat, hired from a private aviation agency have come forward, which took off for Guwahati at 2:30 PM on Sunday.
On day 1 of rebellion had said more ministers will join #Eknath_Shinde camp, had mentioned in a show too named #UdaySamant to many friends including to @vvmspeaks now here it is, he’s on his way to Guwahati #MaharashtraPolitcalCrisis pic.twitter.com/fXb9ZScEmf
— Singh Varun (@singhvarun) June 26, 2022
At the Moment, Eknath Shinde’s rebellion camp in Guwahati has 38 MLAs from the Shiv Sena, 2 Prahar Jan Shakti Party MLAs and 7 independents with a total tally of 47. With now Uday Samant joining the camp, the Shiv Sena number has gone up to 39.
On the other hand, the Shiv Sena is left with only two MLAs as ministers in the MVA government. Aditya Thackeray and Shankarrao Gadakh are the only two ministers in the government who are Shiv Sena MLAs. The party has two more ministers but they MLCs. They are Anil Parab and Subhash Desai, who are Legislative Council members. CM Uddhav Thackeray is also an MLC.
Apart from Aditya Thackeray, Shankarrao Gadakh is the second Sena MLA in the MVA cabinet. He had contested the elections originally as an Independent MLA, but later merged his party Krantikari Shetkari Paksha into Shiv Sena in August 2020.
The ministers in the rebel group are Eknath Shinde, Dadaji Bhuse, Gulabrao Patil, Sandeepan Bhumre, Shambhuraj Desai, Abdul Sattar, Rajendra Patil Yedravkar, Bachhu Kadu and Uday Samant.
