In the week that rebel Shiv Sena MLAs spent at a five-star hotel in Guwahati before making a move towards an endgame today, they had a lot to chew on, including a specific brand of chewing tobacco.
This pan masala was high on their demand list, sources told NDTV. A Marathi cook was also flown in on one of the many chartered flights that brought in MLAs to swell their ranks at the five-star hotel.
Staff was sent out to buy clothes, shoes and medicines as well, because many of them had left Mumbai just as they were. Many of the MLAs had first gone to Surat with their leader Eknath Shinde, before they moved to Guwahati where more joined in.
The best of Assam’s famed tea was served to them, the sources added.
Assam’s BJP government faced Opposition fire over “royal hospitality” to the Shiv Sena rebels amid massive floods in the state, but Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma simply said people coming to the state is a boost for tourism. He invited Uddhav Thackeray, too.
The 40-odd MLAs were at the hotel in Guwahati in BJP-ruled Assam for the past week with a mission to topple the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government. Today they moved to Goa, another BJP-ruled state, apparently for convenience as it’s closer to Mumbai, where the Governor ordered a trust vote that could unseat the Uddhav Thackeray-led government.
A hotel was booked for them in Goa already, sources said.
The Thackeray camp sought a halt on the trust vote but the Supreme Court refused that, with a rider: the outcome will be subject to the July 11 hearing of case about possible disqualification of 16 rebels under the anti-defection law.
