SC to hear two major petitions on Maharashtra politics today

A hearing on Uddhav Thackeray's petition against ECI's decision on Shiv Sena name-symbol along with the disqualification petition against the Speaker will be taken up for hearing in the Supreme Court today.

New Delhi:Hearing of two major petitions, both related to Shiv Sena, will be held in the Supreme Court today, which is likely to determine the future of Maharashtra politics.

The first is a case filed by Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray against the Election Commission of India's (ECI) order whereby it allotted the 'Shiv Sena' party name and 'bow and arrow' symbol to chief minister Eknath Shinde. The other one is a petition filed against Assembly Speaker Rahul Narvekar. Both the petitions will be heard before a bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices Manoj Mishra and Pardiwala.

In the plea filed by Thackeray group on ECI's order on party name and symbol, the apex court had earlier sought response from it. The rival factions have been at loggerheads ever since Shinde came out from the party fold with majority of the MLAs and formed the government with BJP's support.

The court had earlier refused to grant interim stay on the commission's decision. Thackeray had termed the ECI's order as 'murder of democracy'. Anticipating a legal challenge from Thackeray, the Shinde in turn had approached Supreme Court to prevent any ax-parte order. The hearing in this connection will be held today.

Meanwhile, Thackeray faction's MLA Sunil Prabhu had filed petition in connection with the disqualification of 16 MLAs of the Shinde faction. In the petition, Speaker was asked to take a decision on the disqualification immediately. Also, the Supreme Court had issued a notice to Narvekar seeking his response within two weeks.