Indian Tribal News Service
New Delhi
Keeping in mind the existing turf war within his party, pressure from a majority of MPs of his party and the State’s tribal votebank, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday said that the party led by him will support NDA’s presidential candidate Draupadi Murmu because she is a tribal woman.
The rebel faction, led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, has already vouched its support to Murmu, the NDA’s presidential candidate whose support base among the Opposition camp is gradually increasing as the July 18 Presidential election nears.
“Tribal leaders of my party told me that this is the first time a tribal woman has a chance to become the President,” he said justifying his action and asserting “nobody pressured me in the meeting of Sena MPs”.
The decision comes a day after 16 of the 22 Shiv Sena MPs are said to have asked Uddhav to support Murmu.
Having lost power and also his control over the Shiv Sena, Thackeray is fighting a legal battle with the rebel faction to retain his party and his grip over it.
Going against the wishes of his party’s parliamentarians now would have posed the threat of his MPs too switching allegiance to Shinde enmasse just as the MLAs did. Moreover, the fact that the tribals constitute 10 percent of Maharashtra’s population too may have played a role in arriving at the decision.
That he was quite reluctant to take the step being a part of the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi was evident when he said: “Actually, going by the present political atmosphere, I should not have backed her. But we are not narrow-minded.”
Sena MP Sanjay Raut said Shiv Sena had earlier backed UPA presidential nominees like Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee. “The Sena has the tradition of going beyond politics. We believe in backing people in the national interest,” he said.
Murmu already has the support of regional parties like BJD, YSR-CP, BSP, AIADMK, TDP, JDS and Shiromani Akali Dal even as the JMM too is most likely to support her.
