Uddhav Sena in Crisis as Six MPs Reportedly Defect Amid 'Operation Tiger'

The Uddhav Sena (UBT) faces an existential threat as rebel factions within the party claimed support from six of its nine Lok Sabha MPs, triggering an emergency meeting in Delhi on June 18, 2026. The crisis unfolded after sources revealed a coordinated operation, allegedly overseen by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde during his time in the capital, to orchestrate the defection. Party leader Sanjay Raut's Wednesday press conference exposed the scale of the rebellion, with only three MPs—Arvind Sawant, Anil Desai, and Rajabhau Waje—present alongside him, while six others remained absent and unreachable.

Uddhav Thackeray's camp responded by issuing a three-line whip requiring all MPs to attend the Delhi meeting in person, with threats of disciplinary action against absentees. The rebels reportedly met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to assert their two-thirds majority, the threshold needed to avoid disqualification under anti-defection law. However, Sena (UBT) leaders including Sanjay Raut, Arvind Sawant, and Anil Desai countered by submitting representations to the Speaker, arguing that legal provisions protect the original party organisation and that even a two-thirds majority cannot unilaterally merge with another party.

According to sources, the rebel MPs were moved out of Delhi and kept from public view while legal groundwork for their formal induction into Eknath Shinde's faction proceeded. A formal announcement of any crossover was expected around June 20 or 21, with sources claiming the operation was executed "without hurdles" but that the timeline was deliberately extended to allow scrutiny of legal and technical aspects. The crisis represents a potential repeat of the 2022 rebellion that devastated Thackeray's position and brought down the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, testing whether he can retain control of his parliamentary party four years later.

The missing six MPs are identified as Sanjay Patil, Sanjay Deshmukh, Omprakash Raje Nimbalkar, Bhausaheb Wakchaure, Nagesh Patil-Ashtikar, and Sanjay Jadhav. Raut expressed fury at the defections during his press conference, using strong language to condemn the MPs as traitors. Party insiders acknowledged that several lawmakers had become unreachable, though no formal communication of defection had been received at the time of the emergency meeting.