Maharashtra government in crisis. Here's how the drama unfolded

The crisis in the Maharashtra government was a midnight coup that began on Monday evening engineered by the BJP and elements within the Shiv Sena led by senior Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde.

Addressing the media, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar categorically stated that NCP will continue to support the coalition government, and termed the ongoing crisis as Shiv Sena 'internal crisis'. He also stated that there were three attempts to break the formation (MVA coalition) but it hadn't succeeded.





The crisis began even before the Maharashtra Legislative council elections that took the Shiv Sena and those in the government by surprise. Shinde and his group began are suspected to have cross-voted during the MLC polls in favour of the BJP and immediately left the Maharashtra Assembly premises by 7 pm and left for Surat in Gujarat.

With the Election Commission dealing with the Congress complaints of two BJP MLAs voting to be disqualified, the Shiv Sena leadership or the Maha Vikas Aghadi leadership didn’t realize about the missing MLA's.

The Shiv Sena and those in the government got a whiff of the rebellion at around 9 to 10 pm when they realized that Shinde and several MLA’s were not reachable on their phones. Hectic attempts were made to reach their cadres, and their homes, however, these MLAs were simply not reachable to Matoshree.

By around 1 am, the news began filtering into the MVA of the crisis in the Shiv Sena.

By 2.30 am, Matoshree, the residence of Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray then began making phone calls to all of the Shiv Sena functionaries in Thane to come to Matoshree. The Sena’s attempt was to prevent a split in the Thane unit of the party which was being led by Shinde.

By 5 am The Shiv Sena began rounding up the rest of the MLAs who were planning to go to Gujarat, three Shiv Sena MLAs which included Dada Bhuse, Sanjay Rathod, and Ambadas Danve have been ‘caught’ from the ST Regis hotel in Mumbai and are being brought to Matoshree.