The planning of a revolt in Shiv Sena started around six months after Uddhav Thackeray became chief minister of Maharashtra in November 2019 and the rebel leaders who left for Guwahati later were the main conspirators, a Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA has claimed.The MLA from Akola district, Nitin Deshmukh, also said that the claim of Deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis that he made Shinde the chief minister is false. After his revolt pulled down the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government, Shinde took oath as the chief minister on June 30, 2022, with Fadnavis as his deputy.
A month before the revolt (in June 2022), Shinde had told me that he would be the chief minister and that Fadnavis only knew how to bring down a government. Only Shinde and Union Home Minister Amit Shah knew who was going to be the chief minister," Deshmukh claimed.Responding to a question about whether there was an inkling of a split in Shiv Sena or whether MLAs would form a separate group, Deshmukh said, "This (the revolt) did not happen all of a sudden. It started six to seven months after Uddhav Thackeray became the chief minister"Deshmukh said he had discussed the matter with his personal assistant and they thought the number of MLAs who could switch sides would not go beyond 22.The Shiv Sena won 56 seats in the 2019 Assembly elections in the 288-member House. Deshmukh was one of the MLAs who had gone to Surat, but later came back to Mumbai and swore allegiance to Thackeray.