Whip For June 18 MPs’ Meet, Letter To Speaker: Uddhav Sena’s Last-Ditch Efforts To Keep Flock Together

Last Updated:June 17, 2026, 12:23 IST

Uddhav Thackeray camp: LS group leader Arvind Sawant and leader Anil Desai are in Delhi with Sanjay Raut. A party meeting whip has been issued to disqualify any breakaway MP

A strict whip for a meeting on June 18, a letter to the Speaker and statements in the media – the Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray (UBT) seems to be making last-ditch efforts to keep all its MPs together amid Eknath Shinde’s ‘Operation Tiger’.

News18 Marathi, citing sources, reported that six rebel MPs have already submitted a letter to the Speaker about their separate group and have got in-principle nod on Tuesday.

Here’s what is happening in the UBT camp.

Learning from their past mistakes

The Thackeray faction has become more cautious this time to avoid the legal blunders that occurred during the split of MLAs in Shiv Sena four years ago.

Lok Sabha group leader Arvind Sawant and senior party leader Anil Desai are camped in Delhi with Sanjay Raut. A party meeting whip has now been issued to disqualify a breakaway MP if he tries to form a separate group or merge with them.

A strict whip

Thackeray faction’s chief whip Anil Desai has issued an official whip (party order) to all the MPs of the Lok Sabha.

“All Lok Sabha members of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) party are hereby informed that an important meeting of the Parliamentary Party has been called to discuss various issues of the party. All MPs are required to be present at the Parliamentary Party Office 128-A, Parliament House (Samvidhan Sadan) on Thursday, 18th June 2026 at 11.00 am."

A letter to Speaker

Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Arvind Sawant, a loyalist of Uddhav Thackeray, has written to the Lok Sabha Speaker requesting that any party MP forming a separate faction or merging with another party not be recognised. Sawant wrote in the letter that the Shiv Sena (UBT) is a single political party and is legally valid. The Shiv Sena (UBT) stated that the party’s existence in Parliament stems from the parent political party, and therefore, separate factions cannot claim to represent the same party.

Eknath Shinde To Raj Thackeray, Leaders Who Left Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena Split Wide Open

Raut’s warning

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Wednesday alleged that some Maharashtra MPs were being offered “Rs 50 crore" to switch sides and challenged dissidents to quit, amid heightened speculation of an imminent split in the Uddhav Thackeray led party.

Holding a press conference in New Delhi, Raut said the people of Maharashtra and Shiv Sena (UBT) MPs won’t remain quiet if the party split is replicated, a reference to the rebellion in 2022.

Out of the nine Sena (UBT) Lok Sabha members, only three — Arvind Sawant, Anil Desai and Rajabhau Waje — attended the press conference.

Raut said an “important person" had informed him late Tuesday night that efforts were underway to “buy" MPs from Maharashtra. “I was told that the rate is Rs 50 crore and that Rs 15 crore each would be delivered by tonight. They were allegedly unwilling to board the aircraft without receiving the money," the Rajya Sabha claimed.

He, however, said the party had no official information about any split and that reports about some MPs breaking away were being learned through the media.

“If parties are broken in this manner, there is no meaning left in fighting elections," he said.

Raut asserted that all the MPs in question had been elected on the Sena (UBT)’s “mashal" symbol under the leadership of Uddhav Thackeray, and “nobody has the right to betray that mandate".

With News18 Marathi, PTI inputs

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Manjiri Joshi

At the news desk for 20 years, the story of her life has revolved around finding pun, facts while reporting, on radio, heading a daily newspaper desk, teaching mass media students to now editing speci...Read More

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