Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader in the Lok Sabha, Arvind Sawant, has filed a formal petition before Speaker Om Birla seeking his intervention to prevent any attempt by dissident party MPs to engineer a fresh split or merger in the Lower House. The four-page letter, dated 16 June, was submitted amid swirling media reports about what has been dubbed 'Operation Tiger' — an alleged backroom effort to peel away as many as seven of the party's nine Lok Sabha MPs toward the rival Eknath Shinde-led faction or other political forces.

What Sawant's Petition Demands

Sawant explicitly flagged the reported backroom manoeuvres in his letter. 'There are reports appearing in the media that certain Members of Parliament elected on the symbol of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) have either approached, or are contemplating approaching, your office seeking recognition as a separate group or a merger with another political party within the Lok Sabha,' he wrote.

The petition requests the Speaker to formally record the representation, refuse any separate recognition, status, privilege, or facility to any purported breakaway faction, and ensure that no decision is taken on any such request without first granting the principal Shiv Sena (UBT) leadership a fair hearing.

The Constitutional Argument

A substantial portion of Sawant's petition is anchored in constitutional law and judicial precedent. He noted that following the deletion of Paragraph 3 of the Tenth Schedule via the Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act, 2003, the law no longer recognises splinter groups within a legislature as a defence against disqualification — effectively closing the 'split' escape route.

Citing the landmark Supreme Court judgment in 'Subhash Desai vs. Principal Secretary, Governor of Maharashtra and Ors.' (2023), Sawant argued that the power to appoint a whip, a leader, or issue binding directives flows exclusively from the parent political party, not the legislative group.

On the frequently cited two-thirds threshold, Sawant clarified that Paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule requires two conditions to be met conjunctively: a merger of the original political party itself, and the support of at least two-thirds of the legislative members. 'Without an actual merger of the organisational Shiv Sena (UBT), any standalone action by the MPs would constitute a voluntary relinquishment of membership, triggering immediate disqualification under Paragraph 2 of the Anti-Defection Law,' he stated.

Why Tensions Are Running High

The petition arrives at a politically charged moment. Multiple UBT MPs reportedly arrived in New Delhi simultaneously with Deputy Chief Minister and Shiv Sena chief Eknath Shinde, intensifying speculation about coordinated defection moves. Senior UBT MP Sanjay Raut has alleged that opposition lawmakers were being offered sums of up to ₹15 crore each to switch sides — a charge the Shinde faction has publicly dismissed.

The Shinde Camp's Response and What Comes Next

The Shinde faction has denied engineering any defections, but the filing of Sawant's comprehensive legal letter signals that the Thackeray camp is preparing for a full-scale constitutional battle to protect its parliamentary presence. The Speaker's office has not publicly responded to the petition as yet.

The episode is the latest chapter in the ongoing fragmentation of the original Shiv Sena, which formally split in 2022 when Shinde led a rebellion that toppled the Maha Vikas Aghadi government. The Election Commission of India (ECI) subsequently awarded the party name and symbol to the Shinde faction. With the Thackeray group's parliamentary numbers already thin, any further erosion would sharply diminish its leverage in the Lower House.