Nithyakalyani Narayanan. V
Shiv Sena, led by Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray, has filed a case in the Supreme Court contesting the Maharashtra Speaker’s decision to acknowledge the Eknath Shinde group as the legitimate Shiv Sena and to not remove the Shinde faction’s members from office for desertion in accordance with the Constitution’s tenth schedule.
Speaker Rahul Narwekar delivered the decision on January 10, dismissing the petitions submitted by the Uddhav faction, which aimed to disqualify MLAs who supported Eknath Shinde. The Speaker also rejected the Shinde faction’s and Uddhav group’s disqualification requests.
In a related event, the Shinde Sena has filed the Bombay High Court disputing the Speaker’s decision to exclude members of the Uddhav group. The Speaker declared that Shinde was legitimately appointed as the party’s head and that his group had an overwhelming majority of 37 out of 55 MLAs when opposing factions surfaced. He asserted that Uddhav’s “Party pakshapramukh” at the time could not be considered the political party’s will. This is to allow disagreement inside the party. He further said that Uddhav Thackeray was unable to take down Eknath Shinde from his position as party leader.
The Speaker said that Sunil Prabhu had ceased to be the party’s official whip on June 21 and lacked the power to hold a meeting of the party, even though he refused to disqualify the forty members of the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction in response to the petitions submitted by the Uddhav Thackeray faction. As a result, the MLAs from the Shinde faction cannot be excluded for breaking the aforementioned whip. The speaker went on to say that the Shinde faction’s failure to show up for the meeting could only be described as a party act of dissent, and that act would be shielded by the right to free speech and expression.
The Supreme Court later extended the time to January 10, 2024, from its original December 31, 2023, deadline for the Speaker to rule on the petitions filed under the tenth schedule of the Constitution. Strongly dissatisfied with the Speaker’s protracted decision-making process, the SC noted that “the dignity of this court’s judgement should be maintained.”