Lok Sabha MP Gajanan Kirtikar appointed Shiv Sena’s leader of parliamentary party, replaces Sanjay Raut

Eknath Shinde wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar, informing that Kirtikar will be the leader of the Shiv Sena Parliamentary party in place of Raut

Shinde wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar, informing that Kirtikar will be the leader of the Shiv Sena Parliamentary party in place of Raut. (Twitter/GajananKirtikar)

Over a month after the Election Commission of India (ECI) recognised the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led faction as the real Shiv Sena and allotted party name Shiv Sena and the ‘bow and arrow’ poll symbol to it, Shinde Thursday appointed Lok Sabha MP Gajanan Kirtikar as the leader of its parliamentary party by replacing Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut.

Shinde wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar, informing that Kirtikar will be the leader of the Shiv Sena Parliamentary party in place of Raut.

The Shinde-led Sena felicitated Kiritikar Thursday at the Parliamentary party office located on the third floor of Parliament building. “Chief Minister @mieknathshinde has shown a confidence in me b appointing me as the leader of the Shiv Sena parliamentary party. I express my sincere gratitude to him as well as to all the Shiv Sena colleagues in parliament who have supported me,” Kirtikar said in a tweet on Thursday.

The undivided Shiv Sena has a total of 19 MPs in Lok Sabha, of which 13 have joined the Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction after the split in the party.

Shinde along with 39 MLAs had launched a rebellion against Uddhav Thackeray in June last year accusing him of compromising with the party’s ideology by allying with NCP and Congress to form the MVA and the government in Maharashtra. Shinde’s rebellion had led to the fall of the Uddhav-led MVA government.

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