Shinde aide Shirsat says merger of two Senas still possible

MUMBAI: If we forgive and forget, we can get back together. And, no, it’s not too late, said senior Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Shirsat, referring to the party’s bitter split in June 2022. Shirsat’s remark, made in an interview to a news channel in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, comes against the backdrop of the open conflict between the BJP and Sena.

The two parties, allies in the BJP-led Mahayuti government, have been locked in battle over several issues ever since the BJP swept to power in November last year. First, there was trouble over the post of chief minister, then a protracted impasse over portfolio distribution, and now over the appointment of guardian ministers of Raigad and Nashik districts.

Shirsat, social justice minister, is a close aide of Sena chief and deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde, who believes he has been short-changed by the BJP in the power-sharing arrangement in the Mahayuti alliance. Now Shinde’s key confidant, Shirsat, says he would be happy if the Sena reunited with the Sena (UBT) led by Uddhav Thackeray.

Shirsat said he was hurt by the split in the Sena and that a merger of the two Senas is still possible. Wait any longer and it might be too late, he said. “For me, the split in the Shiv Sena was painful. We had no option but to leave the party as the then party leader Uddhav Thackeray had forged an alliance with the Congress and NCP, and was not prepared to leave them. Although the two Senas are different, we still share good relations as we are old colleagues. A merger of the two Senas is possible if both of us accept our mistakes and come forward,” said Shirsat.

Once a trusted leader of the Thackeray family in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, Shirsat ditched his political mentors and went with Eknath Shinde, when he broke the party in 2022. Soon, he became one of Shinde’s close aides and was made a cabinet minister with an important portfolio.

Shirsat said only senior party leaders could pave the way for a reconciliation, “not new leaders like Aaditya Thackeray”. He remarked, “A merger is possible only now as both sides have senior leaders who worked together for decades and have good personal relations despite the split in the party. Senior leaders can make a merger happen as they worked during the period of struggle and therefore bonded well. But it would not be possible for new leaders like Aaditya Thackeray to lead a merger as there is a generation gap and he gets everything readymade without a struggle. So a merger is possible now; later may be too late.”

Asked to react to Shirsat’s remarks, Sena (UBT) leader and leader of the opposition in the legislative council, Ambadas Danve, slammed Shirsat and the other MLAs who defected and split the Sena. “The split was painful for everyone in the party. Why didn’t they think of that when they broke the party?” he said.

“Now that the BJP has started cornering deputy chief minister Shinde, Sena leaders like Shirsat are probably feeling nostalgic and therefore talking of a merger. I am not the authority to comment on this issue but, as the saying goes, ‘anything can happen in politics’,” said Danve.

MP Arvind Sawant, also of the Sena (UBT), said that at least those who had hurt loyalists of the Shiv Sena by splitting the party are now feeling their own share of pain.