In yet another major setback to the Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena faction within a day, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has recognised Rahul Shewale as the Shiv Sena leader in the Lower House of Parliament on Tuesday, July 19, said Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde.
The Lok Sabha Secretariat issued an official circular regarding the change of Shiv Sena leader in the House.
This development came after 12 Lok Sabha MPs of Shinde faction met Birla earlier in the day and requested him to recognise Shewale as the leader of the party in the House.
"Many MPs were upset with the work of the internal group leader Vinayak Raut so we had written to the Speaker to change the group leader. The Speaker will take action on this. Our chief whip will be the same, there will be no change," said Rahul Shewale while talking to reporters.
He further claimed that Uddhav Thackeray was keen on realigning with the BJP, but went back on his word."
"We had also asked Thackeray not to support Margaret Alva for the VP's post, but our views were ignored," Shewale added.
The Shiv Sena has 19 MPs in the Lok Sabha of whom 12 are lending their support to the Eknath Shinde camp.
Meanwhile, Bhavana Gawali has been retained as the Chief Whip.
6 MPs still with Uddhav Thackeray
Vinayak Raut, Arvind Sawant, Gajanan Kirtikar, Sanjay Jadhav, Om Rane Nimbalkar and Rajan Vichar. They did not attend the meeting called by Shinde on Monday, July 18, and are still with Uddhav Thackeray.
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