Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA had plans to arrest BJP leaders, says Eknath Shinde

Mumbai: In what snowballed into a major political issue in Maharashtra amid the heat and dust of the Lok Sabha elections, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde claimed that the erstwhile Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi had drawn up plans to arrest BJP leaders including Devendra Fadnavis, Girish Mahajan, Ashish Shelar and Pravin Darekar.

Shinde, who heads the Maha Yuti government, made the claims in an interview to a national daily, a charge that he reiterated later while speaking to reporters.

“My knowledge is that during the MVA rule, there was a move not just to arrest Devendra Fadnavis but BJP leaders Girish Mahajan, Ashish Shelar and Pravin Darekar,” Shinde claimed.

A two-time former chief minister, Fadnavis was then the leader of the opposition in the Assembly, while Mahajan was his close aide and trouble-shooter. Shelar, an MLA is the Mumbai BJP president while Darekar is an MLC.

All of them were vocal against the leadership of the MVA which included the undivided Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, Sharad Pawar-led undivided NCP and the Congress.

Incidentally, Shinde was a minister in the MVA dispensation.

However, Fadnavis, took the BJP top brass into confidence and toppled the MVA in June-July 2022 and established the Maha Yuti with Shinde as the chief minister. A year later, Ajit Pawar rebelled against his uncle and mentor Sharad Pawar and switched over to BJP.

Shinde and Ajit Pawar now control the real Shiv Sena and NCP, respectively.

When asked about the claim, Shinde told reporters that it was true. “What I have said is correct…many things are there about which I have not spoken....abhi break ke baad,” he said.

However, Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson Sanjay Raut said that Shinde himself would have been arrested at the orders of BJP. “In fact, he was part of the (MVA) government,” he said.

It may be mentioned, last year also, Shinde had made a similar claim about Fadnavis.

"I was a witness to the ongoing planning of the MVA government to arrest then leader of opposition Devendra Fadnavis and Girish Mahajan. That government had even planned to invoke the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act 1999 against Mahajan. I cannot repeat what I had said at that time to stop them…I later toppled the whole government and made them (MVA) sit at home. The strategy was to put the BJP on the backfoot (through the arrests),” Shinde had claimed earlier.