Over 50 Shiv Sena (UBT) Members Join BJP in Vasai as 'Operation Tiger' Gathers Pace

More than 50 members of Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) in Vasai, including branch chiefs, department heads and party workers, have switched to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in what political observers say is a significant blow to the Thackeray faction's organisational presence in the constituency.

The induction took place at the MLA public outreach office in Vasai West in the presence of local MLA Sneha Dubey Pandit, ABP News reported. The scale of the crossover — spanning multiple tiers of the party's local structure — has been described as a meaningful weakening of Shiv Sena (UBT)'s ground-level strength in the area.

The defections form part of a broader and accelerating churn in Maharashtra politics, where leaders and workers from the Thackeray camp have been moving to either the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena or the BJP in growing numbers. The trend has been formalised under what is being referred to as "Operation Tiger," a coordinated effort by the Shinde faction to peel away members of the rival camp.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis recently said the operation had been carried out successfully. Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, speaking at a press conference in Mumbai on Sunday, suggested further defections were imminent and said efforts were under way to make the operation "foolproof."

Taking a pointed dig at the Uddhav faction's leadership, Shinde described a pattern in which workers speak candidly in private but fall in line publicly, calling it a "chemical locha" — a colloquial term for confusion — and hinting that more "breaking news" would follow.

The Vasai development adds to a mounting series of challenges for Shiv Sena (UBT), which has been grappling with defections, shifting political equations and reduced electoral traction across Maharashtra since the split in the original Shiv Sena.