Maharashtra, the richest state in India, is undergoing intense political drama that threatens the stability of its administration.
In a hotel in Guwahati, the capital of the north-eastern state of Assam, hundreds of kilometres from Maharashtra, are about 35 parliamentarians, including powerful state minister Eknath Shinde.
They are members of the Shiv Sena party, which together with the Congress party and the local Nationalist Congress Party presently controls Maharashtra (NCP).
Mr. Shinde, a longtime Shiv Sena member, asserts that he is representing his party's interests. However, his revolt has put the state's administration in danger of disintegrating.
Uddhav Thackeray, the chief minister and leader of the Shiv Sena, departed his official house on Wednesday night after giving an impassioned address pleading with the rebel MPs to come back and speak to him.
Maharashtra is one of India's major states and a politically significant region for all national parties; it is the location of the nation's financial hub Mumbai, the Bollywood film industry, and some of the biggest businesses.
State-level events frequently have an immediate effect on federal politics.
An odd coalition that includes the vehemently right-wing Shiv Sena, the centrist NCP, the Congress, and independent MPs has been in power there since 2019.
Together, they were able to assemble enough support to pass the halfway point of 144 legislators in the 288-member legislature, impeding India's governing coalition.
As a result of disagreements over power sharing, the Shiv Sena and the BJP, its longtime partner, parted. The two Hindu nationalist groups had a tense relationship in the years preceding their breakup, despite having identical ideologies.
To defend the rights of Mumbai's Marathi-speaking population, the Shiv Sena was founded as an ethnic, nativist party. It positioned itself as a party that supported Hindu interests after losing a significant portion of its initial support base, and its base has historically been anti-Congress.
Thus, rumours of its partnership with the Congress caused political catastrophe and aroused many questions. However, Mr. Thackeray and his associates had up until this point survived a number of catastrophes.
According to reports, Mr. Shinde is interested in resurrecting the BJP's alliance and restoring it to power in the state. The existing coalition government would lose its majority if he managed to win over additional Shiv Sena legislators.
After the state's legislative council elections on Monday, Mr. Shinde became "unreachable," which sparked the situation.
Although six of the ten seats were expected to go to the Shiv Sena and its allies, they only managed to win five. Despite rumours of cross-voting by Sena dissidents, the BJP, which was predicted to win just four, won the remaining five.
Then, according to media accounts, Mr. Shinde had departed for Surat city in the western state of Gujarat, where the BJP is in control, along with 11 more Sena MPs.
In response, Mr. Thackeray fired Mr. Shinde as party whip.
When BJP leaders later paid him a visit at his hotel in Gujarat, Mr. Shinde was photographed meeting with them after removing the Shiv Sena from his Twitter profile.
Over Tuesday night, immediately after speaking with Mr. Thackeray on the phone, Mr. Shinde and his followers took a flight to the BJP-controlled Guwahati city in Assam.