Maharashtra political crisis: Are five Congress MLAs not in touch with the party?

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As the drama involving Shiv Sena MLAs continues, tensions have increased in the Congress after five of its MLAs were also allegedly not in touch with their party on Tuesday.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government was shocked by the massive cross-voting with the victory of all the five BJP candidates, despite not having a majority in the Assembly elections.

After Shiv Sena's Eknath Shinde allegedly led some MLAs to Surat, on Tuesday the Congress asked all its MLAs to return to Mumbai immediately. The Congress had kept all its MLAs at the Four Seasons Hotel in Mumbai for two days to cast their votes in the Assembly elections. After the elections on Monday evening, they had returned to their home towns. Amid political drama in Maharashtra, the party reportedly asked its MLAs on Tuesday to return to Mumbai. But it is learnt that of its 44 MLAs, five were allegedly not reachable.

Vijay Wadettiwar is suspected to be among the five MLAs. But the Congress is denying that its five MLAs are not in touch with it.

Congress leader Chandrakant Handore was defeated in the Assembly elections and he and the party's second ranked candidate Bhai Jagtap got 41 votes out of 44 votes. Balasaheb Thorat had accepted the responsibility for the debacle and resigned from the post of group leader.

As the Shiv Sena was rocked by the revolt of strongman Eknath Shinde and several party MLAs, who escaped to neighbouring Gujarat on Tuesday, the party remained hopeful of their return. CM Uddhav Thackeray told his men that Shinde will come back, but the latter's supporters said it will not happen till the party decides to ally with the BJP.