Days ago, Eknath Shinde had spat with Sanjay Raut & Aaditya Thackeray on votes for Congress in MLC polls

Two days before Eknath Shinde revolted, he had a heated argument with Aaditya Thackeray, state cabinet minister and son of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, and Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut at the Renaissance hotel in Powai where the Sena MLAs had been kept ahead of the Legislative Council elections.

A source said the argument was over using additional votes for the Congress party, which Shinde opposed. One of the Congress candidates, Bhai Jagtap, got the votes he needed, but the other candidate, Chandrakant Handore, was not elected.

“Two days ago, when negotiations were taking place at the Renaissance hotel regarding how the votes were to be used for the Council elections, Shinde had a disagreement with Raut and Aaditya. Shinde was not amenable to the idea of using votes of Sena MLAs to get Congress candidates elected as MLCs. It turned into a heated argument between the two sides. Looking back now, it appears that this could have been a deciding factor (for the revolt),” the source said.