The crisis in the Shiv Sena-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) approached an endgame as an emotional Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray asked rebels to return, asserting that Shiv Sena had a chief minister in the saddle and asking whether they could guarantee this if the alliance partners changed. The rebels, led by Eknath Shinde, for their part, stuck to their ultimatum to their chief: drop the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) from the alliance and tie up with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in a more ‘natural’ alliance: “or we will do it for you”.
The rebels who have shifted to