BREAKING | Eknath Shinde Faction Is The Real Shiv Sena, Uddhav Thackeray Had No Power To Remove Him: Maharashtra Speaker

The Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar today held that Eknath Shinde led faction was the real Shiv Sena when the rival faction emerged within the party on June 22, 2022. He has refused to disqualify any member from both the factions, led by Shinde and Uddhav Thackeray.Both the factions had filed 34 petitions against each other before the speaker in 2022, seeking the disqualification of 54 MLAs in total.UBT faction had submitted that the decision of the pakshapramukh is synonymous with the will of the party so if there is a rift in the leadership structure, the decision of the pakshapramukh constitutes the will of the party.Disagreeing, Speaker said Shinde faction had an overwhelming majority of 37 of 55 MLAs when rival factions emerged and that Shinde was validly appointed as leader of the party. He said the will of "Party pakshapramukh" at the time, Uddhav, cannot be said to be the will of the political party. This is to enable intra-party dissent. To reach this conclusion, the Speaker relied on the 1999 Constitution of the Party which had diluted the power from the hands of the party chief. He revealed that the 2018 Constitution, which concentrated power in the hands of party chief, is not on Election Commission's record and thus cannot be taken into account by him.He added that Uddhav Thackeray had no power to remove Eknath Shinde as the party leader.While refusing to disqualify the 40 members from the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction on the petitions filed by the Uddhav Thackeray faction, Speaker reasoned that Sunil Prabhu had ceased to be the authorised whip of the party on June 21 and had no authority to call a meeting of the party. Therefore, the Shinde-faction MLAs cannot be disqualified for having violated the said whip. Speaker further said that Shinde faction not attending the meeting can at the most be termed as an act of dissent within the party and it would be protected by freedom of speech and expression."If some members go overboard, leading to indiscipline, then the party can take care of such member either by warning or suspension. The 10th Shedule is not intended to be used as a device to be used for imposing intra party discipline. Much less for administering the party. No party leadership can use the provisions of the 10th schedule as a deterrent to stifle the collective dissent of a larger number of members by threatening them with disqualification under the 10th schedule...party members cannot expect high offices of speaker can be used to stifle dissent within party," the Speaker said today.Bharat Goghavle was validly appointed as the whip, Speaker further declared. However, he refused to disqualify Uddhav-led members for violating the whip issued by Goghavle, stating that Shinde faction failed to prove that whip was served on UBT faction MLAs.The Supreme Court had initially set a deadline of December 31, 2023, for the Speaker to decide the petitions under the tenth schedule of the Constitution; the court later extended the deadline to January 10, 2024. The SC expressed strong dissatisfaction at the Speaker's delay in the adjudication, observing “the dignity of this court's judgement should be maintained.” The SplitOn June 21, 2022, Eknath Shinde, a cabinet minister in the Maharashtra Government from the Shiv Sena party, rebelled against then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and a group of other Sena MLAs. Soon after the rebellion, Uddhav's faction passed a resolution, removed Shinde as leader of the legislature party, and appointed MLA Ajay Choudhari in his place. Uddhav loyalist MLA Sunil Prabhu was appointed the chief whip of the party.But the same day, Shinde's faction passed another resolution claiming he would continue to lead the legislature party and appointed Bharatshet Gogawale, MLA from Raigad, as the chief whip. The speaker accepted Shinde's resolution on July 3, 2022. The event led to the fall of the Maha Vikas Agadhi Government in Maharashtra, a coalition of the Shiv Sena, Indian National Congress (INC) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Uddhav Thackeray resigned as Chief Minister on June 29, 2022.However, disqualification pleas were filed before the Speaker against Shinde and 15 other MLAs who rebelled with him after the Sena split. The Uddhav faction alleged that Shinde and others deliberately failed to attend the meeting convened by the party's whip, Sunil Prabhu. The second set of disqualification petitions were filed on June 27, 2022 against more Shinde-faction MLAs. In total, petitions were filed against 40 Sena MLAs. As a counterblast, Eknath Shinde's faction filed petitions seeking the disqualification of 14 Shiv Sena MLAs remaining in the Uddhav Thackeray faction on similar grounds. He also took oath as Chief Minister of Maharashtra with the support of the BJP. Both sides approached the Supreme Court against the disqualification petitions. The first petition was filed by Eknath Shinde in June 2022, challenging the notices issued by the...

BREAKING | Eknath Shinde Faction Is The Real Shiv Sena, Uddhav Thackeray Had No Power To Remove Him: Maharashtra Speaker

Sharmeen Hakim

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