Another big jolt to Uddhav as 66 corporators from Thane civic body join Shinde camp

Thane, July 07: In yet another blow to Uddhav Thackeray, 66 out of the 67 former party corporators of the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) have extended support to the faction led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

The 66 former Sena corporators, led by ex-mayor Naresh Mhaske, met CM Shinde at his 'Nandanvan' bungalow in Mumbai on Wednesday night and extended support to him, a release from Shinde's office said.

The term of the 131-member Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC), which has been a stronghold of the Shiv Sena, ended sometime back and its elections are due.

Prior to this development, Thackeray had claimed that Shinde had backstabbed him. He gave the comments while addressing the Shiv Sena workers. He told the media persons present at the event, "Shinde to whom I have given the responsibility of the party backstabbed me, while NCP and Congress remained with us. It is painful to see that those (MLAs and ministers) who won due to Sena workers and got everything has left him."

A day after this comment from Thackeray, Shinde fired with a tweet in Marathi saying, "Autorickshaw outpaced Mercedes (car)... because this is a government of the common man."

Last month, Shinde had launched a rebellion against the Sena and majority of the party MLAs sided with him, which led to the collapse of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in the state led by Uddhav Thackeray. Shinde was sworn in as the chief minister on June 30 and BJP's Devendra Fadnavis had taken oath as the deputy CM.