NEW DELHI: Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Anand Dubey, a prominent media face of the Uddhav Thackeray-led party, resigned from its primary membership on Monday, citing the party’s failure to post even a single tweet praising Captain Smit Machchhar, who played a key role in foiling an allegd attempt by his Omani co-pilot to hijack and crash an Israel-bound flight.Dubey expressed disappointment over the party’s silence on the incident, saying, “My hero is Smit Machchhar, the man who demonstrated to the entire world, not just India, the immense power of Bajrangbali (Lord Hanuman). Yet, not a single tweet came from our party,” he told ANI.Machchhar, who was hospitalised in Saudi Arabia after the aircraft diverted there and made an emergency landing, told Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a video call that he had been reciting the Hanuman Chalisa when the incident unfolded aboard a flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv.Dubey also rejected allegations by opposition parties, including Shiv Sena (UBT), that the Election Commission was facilitating “vote theft” in favour of the ruling BJP.“They (opposition) claim that votes were stolen… Votes are not being stolen; it is the minds of some people that have been stolen. My heroes are not Sharjeel Imam or Umar Khalid; my hero is not Dhruv Rathee,” he stated.Imam and Khalid have been in jail since 2020 in connection with their alleged roles in the Northeast Delhi riots. Rathee, a Germany-based YouTuber and prominent critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was detained on Saturday ahead of a protest in Delhi demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Rathee was released the following day.Dubey maintained that his decision to quit the Shiv Sena (UBT) was not impulsive, but the result of months of growing discontent over the party’s changing political alignment.“For the past four or five years, I consistently articulated the party’s stance on issues ranging from Maharashtra-specific matters to national and even international affairs. So, what changed? Nothing happens overnight. For several months, I had been suffering in silence, feeling deeply distressed. I find myself unable to voice the very ideals of Hindutva and Sanatan Dharma that I hold so dear,” he said.
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“I am resigning from my party known as Shiv Sena (UBT). I am completely dissociating myself from both my primary membership and the position of national spokesperson,” he added.The united Shiv Sena split from its long-standing ally, the BJP, in November 2019 and subsequently joined hands with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), its former ideological and political rivals, to form a coalition government in Maharashtra.In June 2022, the Shiv Sena split into two factions led by Uddhav Thackeray, whose father, Bal Thackeray, founded the party, and Eknath Shinde. The Election Commission later recognised the Shinde-led faction as the official Shiv Sena, while the Thackeray-led faction was allotted the name Shiv Sena (UBT).
