13 Shiv Sena Lok Sabha MPs attend meet on President polls; most support Murmu

Thirteen of the 18 Lok Sabha MPs of the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra on Monday physically attended a key meeting on the presidential elections and a majority of them suggested supporting the BJPled NDArsquos candidate Droupadi Murmu for the top constitutional post party leader Gajanan Kiritkar saidSome party MLAs and leaders especially those from the adivasi community have already asked the leadership of the Shiv Sena a former ally of the BJP to back Murmu because of her tribal rootsHowever party MP and chief spokesperson Sanjay Raut claimed of the 18 MPs in the Lok Sabha 15 attended the meeting held at lsquoMatoshreersquo the residence of Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray in suburban Bandra He did not provide detailsAlso read SC tells Maharashtra speaker not to heed pleas to disqualify MLAs from Shiv SenaBesides 18 members in the Lower House of Parliament from Maharashtra the Shiv Sena also has its MP Kalaben Delkar in the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and DiuIt has three MPs in the Rajya Sabha ndash Sanjay Raut Priyanka Chaturvedi and Anil DesaiRaut and Chaturvedi took part in the meeting at lsquoMatoshreersquo while Desai was away in New Delhi to attend the Supreme Court hearing on matters related to disqualification of Shiv Sena MLAs and other issuesThe inperson attendance of Lok Sabha members assumes significance as last week rebel MLA Gulabrao Patil had claimed 12 out of the 18 party MPs were in touch with the dissident campThe rebel camp led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has claimed the support of 40 of the 55 Sena MLAsKiritkar said 13 MPs physically attended the meeting while three others mdash Sanjay Jadhav Parbhani Sanjay Mandlik Kolhapur and Hemant Patil Hingoli mdash could not make it to the gathering but affirmed their support to the leadershipldquoMost of the MPs were of the opinion that the party should support Droupadi Murmurdquo Kirtikar told PTIEarlier two Sena MPs ndash Rajendra Gavit and Rahul Shewale ndash had separately written letters to Thackeray urging him to support Murmu for the post of PresidentShiv Sena MP from Ramtek in Nagpur district Krupal Tumane said he did attend the party meeting on presidential elections in Mumbai and rubbished media reports about his absenceTumane in a statement in Nagpur said news reports claiming he was not present at the meeting were ldquobaseless and not truerdquoThe Lok Sabha member said he held discussions with the Sena president on the poll issueThe presidential polls will be held on July 18 in which 4809 members comprising MPs and MLAs will vote to elect incumbent Ram Nath Kovindrsquos successor Counting votes will take place in the national capital on July 21Major opposition parties led by the Congress and the TMC have jointly fielded former Union minister Yashwant Sinha for the top postThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever