Sena asks mins to hand in 'will quit' affidavits

MUMBAI: The Shiv Sena led by deputy CM Eknath Shinde will soon take affidavits from its newly sworn-in ministers that they are willing to quit after two and a half years to make room for other contenders.

- Yogesh Naik

Minister Shamburaj Desai said the affidavits were being taken so that Shinde could drop them officially if he wanted to.

Shinde declared that his party had adopted a "perform or perish" policy and whoever performed would stay.

A close aide of Shinde said, "The Shiv Sena MLAs have neither ideology nor loyalty to Eknath Shinde—all they want is power. We have to distribute the power equitably."

Three Sena MLAs—Deepak Kesarkar, Abdul Sattar and Tanaji Sawant—who were dropped on the say-so of the BJP and CM Devendra Fadnavis—are said to be very unhappy. Interestingly, Sanjay Rathod, another Sena minister against whom there were many complaints, has been retained despite these. Sources indicated that this was because of his friendship with Devendra Fadnavis.

"When he was at the centre of a raging controversy in the MVA government and was removed, he was attacked by the BJP women's wing but Fadnavis, then in the opposition, was relatively soft on him," said a source.

Kesarkar, who skipped the Nagpur winter session and swearing-in and went to Shirdi instead to pray to Saibaba, seemed to have faced the situation with equanimity.