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NEW DELHI: Shiv Sena (UBT) MP in Rajya Sabha Sanjay Raut on Thursday used cuss words against the rebel party MPs again after they skipped the key Parliamentary meet in the national capital.Raut’s fury came out after just three of Shiv Sena (UBT)’s nine Lok Sabha MPs turned up for the meet, fuelling speculation that a split in the Uddhav Thackeray-led outfit may be imminent. The sparse attendance came despite the party issuing a three-line whip mandating the presence of all its MPs.Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Raut launched a scathing attack on the absent MPs, branding them as “traitors”, “dishonest” and “frauds”, and accusing them of betraying the party through their rebellion.This continues only a day after he unleashed a sharp attack on the defectors, even urging television channels and reporters not to censor the abusive terms he used against them, saying, “Don’t cut it, run it.” Defending his choice of words, he later said such expressions were commonly used in Maharashtra and insisted he knew when and where different language was appropriate.A split in the Shiv Sena (UBT) appears increasingly likely amid speculation that six of its nine Lok Sabha MPs, enough to constitute the two-thirds strength required for a separate group, are set to align with the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, fuelling talk of “Operation Tiger”, a reported effort to engineer another major defection similar to the 2022 rebellion that split the party.
