Six Lok Sabha MPs from the Shiv Sena are poised to turn an internal revolt into an open political rupture on Sunday, deepening the crisis facing Uddhav Thackeray’s party four years after the first split led by Eknath Shinde.
The dissident MPs are expected to address a press conference, place before the public details of their meeting with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and release the letter they submitted to him. Their move is aimed at explaining why they no longer accept the leadership line of the Thackeray-led faction and why they are seeking parliamentary space closer to the Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
The MPs at the centre of the revolt are Sanjay Dina Patil from Mumbai North East, Sanjay Deshmukh from Yavatmal-Washim, Nagesh Patil Ashtikar from Hingoli, Sanjay Jadhav from Parbhani, Bhausaheb Wakchaure from Shirdi and Omprakash, also known as Om Raje, Nimbalkar from Dharashiv, earlier Osmanabad. Together, they make up six of the party’s nine Lok Sabha members, giving the rebellion numerical weight beyond symbolic dissent.
Their letter to the Speaker is understood to argue that the Shiv Sena has moved away from the ideological platform on which they contested the 2024 Lok Sabha election. The rebels are expected to claim that continued alignment with the Congress and the broader opposition bloc has alienated parts of the Sena’s traditional support base and created confusion among cadres in their constituencies.
A key contention from the rebel side is that the party leadership was taking decisions without adequate consultation with elected MPs. Several of them are expected to argue that repeated attempts to communicate their concerns did not lead to a meaningful course correction. Their public appearance is therefore being framed not merely as a defection exercise, but as an attempt to justify the break before voters and party workers.
The Thackeray camp has moved to contain the damage by writing to the Speaker and asking him not to recognise any breakaway claim. Arvind Sawant, the party’s Lok Sabha leader, has maintained that any request for separate recognition or merger must be examined in the light of anti-defection provisions and the pending legal dispute over the Shiv Sena’s identity. The faction has also initiated disciplinary action against the six MPs for staying away from party meetings.
The numbers make the dispute politically sensitive. Under the anti-defection framework, a simple split does not protect legislators from disqualification, but a merger backed by at least two-thirds of a legislature party can acquire legal significance. With six out of nine MPs on one side, the rebels have crossed that threshold within the Shiv Sena ’s Lok Sabha strength, though any final decision would depend on the Speaker’s handling of their submission and the legal framing of their move.
The rebellion comes at a difficult moment for the Thackeray faction, which had sought to rebuild its political position after the 2022 revolt that brought down the Maha Vikas Aghadi government and elevated Shinde as chief minister. The Election Commission of India later recognised the Shinde camp as Shiv Sena and allotted it the bow-and-arrow symbol, while the Thackeray faction has continued under the Shiv Sena name with the flaming torch symbol. That decision remains part of a wider legal and political contest.
For Shinde, now a senior leader in the Maharashtra government, the possible entry of six MPs would strengthen his claim over the Sena’s organisational legacy and parliamentary strength. It would also reinforce the ruling alliance’s argument that the Thackeray faction has lost touch with the party’s original ideological plank. The BJP-led bloc would gain not only numbers in the Lok Sabha but also a sharper narrative ahead of local body elections and future assembly contests in Maharashtra.
The Thackeray camp is relying on counter-mobilisation and loyalty appeals to prevent the revolt from spreading to the state legislature and district units. Party leaders have projected the rebellion as a power-driven move engineered by rivals rather than a genuine ideological disagreement. They have warned that MPs elected on the party’s symbol and campaign machinery cannot shift allegiance without facing political and legal consequences.
Om Raje Nimbalkar’s position has attracted particular attention because of signals that he may consult voters in Dharashiv before taking a final call. Any hesitation within the rebel group could complicate the public projection of unity, though the planned press conference suggests the dissidents are preparing to act collectively.
