Colleagues say Wednesday’s outburst was the angriest they had seen Daniel Andrews

Labor MPs have revealed Daniel Andrews became enraged during Wednesday’s caucus meeting and “tore strips” off Ben Carroll in what became an angry shouting match between warring factions.

Daniel Andrews lashed out at colleagues and demanded they avoid a bloody factional war during a fiery meeting to choose his successor, MPs have claimed.

They said Mr Andrews ­was the angriest they had ever seen him during Wednesday’s 75-minute caucus meeting, after infighting threatened to derail his preference that Jacinta Allan replace him.

Sources said Mr Andrews “tore strips” off Ben Carroll, who challenged for the top job.

Multiple MPs, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Mr Andrews became enraged during the meeting, remarking: “I don’t know what I did to deserve this.”

Ben Carroll says Daniel Andrews tore strips off him. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

He told colleagues that while they had a right to aspire to promotion, they had no right to bring their factional divisions into the partyroom.

He warned that unless the party emerged united it would look like the Liberal Party.

Mr Andrews also told his MPs it would be a terrible look if they couldn’t agree on a new premier, and warned that a long ballot process would leave Victoria without a leader.

While spruiking the Grand Final Parade on Friday, Major Events Minister Steve Dimopoulos refused to be drawn on whether the former Premier lost his temper.

Instead, he labelled the caucus meeting “robust”.

“It was robust but the 49th Premier of Victoria was elected unopposed,” he said.

“Caucus meetings are generally robust and they should be.”

Mr Dimopoulos refused to go into further detail, saying it would be disrespectful to his colleagues.

“I have a bit of an integrity streak about speaking about caucus meetings, and that’s because there’s a general rule that caucus colleagues give each other the respect,” he said.

“What happens in the caucus room is a matter between colleagues.”

Mr Dimopoulos shrugged off concerns about caucus members leaking to the media, maintaining that the partyroom was unified.

“It’s not unusual that people talk, people have talked for nine years and has it actually impacted anything? No,” he said.

But Partyroom sources said the meeting had erupted into an angry shouting match between warring factions.

At one point Mr Andrews ­allegedly stopped Mr Carroll from speaking, prompting him to nominate Ms Allan for the top job.

Sources said Mr Carroll was probably the first Labor MP to stand up to Andrews since the death of former minister Jane Garrett, who clashed with the former Premier over his controversial merger of Victoria’s fire services.

A longstanding backroom deal to install Ms Allan, from the party’s Socialist Left, as Premier with Mr Carroll, from the party’s Right, as her deputy was thrown into chaos after Mr Andrews resigned on Tuesday.

Senior factional members manoeuvring for greater influence within the partyroom have been blamed for the messy transition.

It is understood to have included factional operatives from the Right mooting alternative deputies, rendering the longstanding backroom deal dead.

It prompted the Socialist Left’s Tim Pallas to nominate for the deputy position in a move that enraged the party’s Right.

The move was seen as a greedy power grab, igniting the factional war that almost ­derailed the transition.

In response, Mr Carroll flagged challenging for the leadership, in a move that would have led to a month-long ballot process.

Ms Allan was ultimately elected unopposed when “cooler heads prevailed” and Mr Carroll decided not to contest the leadership.

Jacinta Allan was elected leader with Ben Carroll her deputy. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Mr Andrews said on Wednesday: “The 49th Premier was elected unopposed by the ­caucus, and she has my full support.”

Ms Allan had long been Mr Andrews’ preferred successor.

Labor sources said a dramatic factional shift that saw seven of the party’s formerly Right-aligned MPs defect to the Socialist Left in December was orchestrated to seal her fate.

It boosted Mr Andrews’ grip on power, cemented the Socialist Left as the dominant faction within power, and should have killed off the prospects of any challenger to Ms Allan.

In June, the Herald Sun ­revealed that the succession planning for a potential handover of power from Mr Andrews to Ms Allan had accelerated, with the then Deputy Premier advised to start building a team around her that would be ready to hit the ground running at short notice.

Ms Allan rejected any suggestion that her team had been divided. “We’re a strong team. We have an incredibly talented team and we walked out of the (Wednesday’s) meeting with unanimous endorsement of the leadership team and a firm focus on delivering in the community,” she said.

Originally published as Colleagues say Wednesday’s outburst was the angriest they had seen Daniel Andrews