The Shiv Sena yesterday sacked senior leader Mohan Rawale, at five terms its longest serving Lok Sabha MP, for dissidence, a party spokesperson said.
The expulsion was ordered shortly after Rawale addressed a press conference in which he launched a no-holds barred attack on the party leadership and alleged that the Shiv Sena was becoming “a party of touts.”
The developments came just four days after a Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray warned that all those who did not like his leadership were “free to leave the party.”
At the press conference, Rawale bitterly said that Shiv Sena “is no longer the party it was under the late Bal Thackeray.”
“This is no longer the party envisioned by its founder, the late Bal Thackeray. It has changed and become a party of ‘touts’ and middlemen,” Rawale said in a direct attack on the party leadership.
Once considered the Sena’s ‘unconquered tiger’ in south-central Mumbai, Rawale targeted Uddhav Thackeray’s personal assistant Milind Narvekar, accusing him of “destroying” the party.
“This man, Milind Narvekar has ruined the party of our ‘Saheb’ (Bal Thackeray) who had ordered his removal. But he was not removed and the present day leaders are supporting him (Narvekar),” said Rawale.
Rawale was elected as the party MP in 1991, 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2004 from Mumbai. He lost in the 2009 elections and has been desperately trying to ensure a party ticket for the 2014 elections.
Expressing his frustration, Rawale said though he was a former MP of the party, he was never granted an appointment to Uddhav.