CHIEF DISRUPTOR

From a Thane strongman to CM, Shinde's stormy rise over the years that culminated in a mega coup altered the course of Maharashtra politics

- Dhaval Kulkarni

For years, speculation in MaF harashtra had been rife: 'will he, won't he?' Some acolytes of Eknath Sambhaji Shinde said he had touched the glass ceiling and was looking for greener pastures, while others said he owed everything to the Shiv Sena and would never betray it. But when Shinde quit the party and joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in June 2022, toppling the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by Uddhav Thackeray, he put these conjectures to rest and reaffirmed the old cliché: politics is the art of the possible.