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Rebel Sena leader to launch rival political outfit

Sacked minister and Shiv Sena rebel Ganesh Naik today declared that he would start a new political outfit within a fortnight and claimed that he had the support of at least 35 members of the legislative assembly.

Addressing a 'trial camp' of his social organisation Shiv Shakti at Murbad in the neighbouring Thane district, Naik said other rebel MLAs like Gulabrao Gavande and Suresh Navle would also join him in the new political party.

The name of the party, of which he would be the founding leader, was being finalised and they are expected to fulfil all legal requirements within the next couple of weeks.

''I have severed my links with the Shiv Sena long ago and I would not like to talk anything about it or its leaders,'' Naik said, expressing his bitterness about the way in which he was dropped from the then Manohar Joshi cabinet without assigning any reason.

The coming days, he said would be of great political significance since the elections to the assembly as well as the Navi Mumbai municipal corporation were not far away. He appealed to the workers who thronged the ground near the Murbad bus depot to be ready for a battle against immorality. ''The fight will be between principled and unprincipled politics,'' he felt.

UNI

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