Newsmaker | Sena (UBT) claims there is a new ‘rebel’ in Shinde camp: Who is Maharashtra minister Uday Samant

Then, on Monday, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut said Samant was “being groomed as a possible replacement for Shinde”. “He (Sawant) has gone to Davos with him (Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis). Now, there is a discord in the (Mahayuti) alliance over guardian ministership (the parties have issues over appointments). If Shinde cannot control his ministers, how can he lead?” Raut said.

While Samant dismissed the statements as “political childishness” and said they were attempts to cause a rift between him and Shinde, a conversation has begun about the Industries Minister’s rising profile in the Shiv Sena.

On Wednesday, Raut said Samant was going to break the Shiv Sena. “Samant has gone to Davos to break the Sena MLAs and MPs. He has the blessings of Delhi and the full support of Delhi (a reference to the BJP’s top brass). Fadnavis does not want Shinde anymore. Tomorrow, PM Narendra Modi will also not want Shinde,” Raut claimed.

Samant responded that in the next three months, several Sena UBT and Congress MLAs and MPs would be joining the Sena.

“Three MPs and five MLAs of Shiv Sena (UBT) have met Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and will soon join Shiv Sena. Along with this, former MLAs, former corporators and office bearers of other parties and Congress have also met the party’s main leader Eknath Shinde and will start working for the Shiv Sena in the next three months,” Samant said in a video that he released from Davos.

Ratnagiri’s Samant

Samant started his career with the undivided Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). He got his first ticket as an MLA from the Ratnagiri constituency in the Konkan region in 2004. He won the election and then managed to retain it for the NCP again in 2009.

In his second term as MLA, Samant became the minister of state in the urban development department during the Congress-NCP government under Prithviraj Chavan’s term as CM.

He quit the NCP in 2014 to join the undivided Shiv Sena and was elected from Ratnagiri again on a Sena ticket. This time, his ministerial responsibilities grew and he was given charge of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority. This was also the time he is said to have become close to Fadnavis who was the CM.

Samant was also seen as close to the Thackeray family, and his stature within the larger Sena also grew. He went on to become the deputy leader of the Shiv Sena in 2018.

In 2019, Samant was again elected from Ratnagiri — his fourth consecutive term — and found a more high-profile posting in the short-lived Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government: Ministry of Higher and Technical Education.

When Shinde launched his rebellion against Uddhav in June 2022 and split the Sena, Samant chose the former’s side, setting off a flurry of questions about his loyalty.

But since then, he has managed to become a part of Shinde’s close circle as well.

In 2022, as Shinde became CM with Fadnavis then as his deputy, Samant got another elevation: he became the Industries Minister in the Eknath Shinde-led state government.

Considered as an educated and sophisticated face within the Shinde-led Sena, Samant was appointed the party’s spokesperson in 2022.

He has also had his fair share of controversies.

He felt the heat on him when Maharashtra lost out on several industrial projects of companies such as Vedanta Foxconn, Tata Airbus, Bulk Drug Park among others.

Between 2023-’24, a multi-billion dollar petrochemical refinery project in Konkan witnessed several protests by locals. The locals were concerned about its potential impact on the environment and the livelihoods of local communities which are mostly dependent upon the cultivation of mangoes, jack fruits and cashews and fishing. The locals claimed that Samant was pushing for the project despite their opposition.