Mumbai: Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar on Wednesday declared all the 16 MLAs of Shinde-faction of the Shiv Sena including Chief Minister Eknath Shinde as valid.
He ruled that the Eknath Shinde-led faction was the real Shiv Sena political party when rival factions emerged in 2022.
Reading out his ruling on disqualification petitions filed by Shinde-led Sena and the rival faction led by Uddhav Thackeray against each other's MLAs, Narwekar also said that Sunil Prabhu of the Sena (UBT) ceased to be the whip from June 21, 2022, and Bharat Gogawale of the Shinde group became the authorised whip.
As the tenor of the ruling became clear, celebrations broke out among followers of Chief Minister Shinde's faction. The Speaker also held that the Shiv Sena pramukh' (chief) did not have the power to remove any leader from the party. He also did not accept the argument that the will of the party chief and the will of the party were synonymous.
The 1999 party constitution submitted to the Election Commission was the valid constitution for deciding the issues, and the Thackeray group's contention that the amended constitution of 2018 should be relied on was not acceptable, he added. The 1999 constitution made the `Rashtriya Karyakarini' (national executive) the supreme body, he said
The Assembly Speaker started pronouncing his order on Shiv Sena MLAs' disqualification petitions in the evening. He further said that the petitioner's (Uddhav Thackeray faction) contention that the 2018 party constitution should be relied upon cannot be accepted.
The decision by the Maharashtra Assembly Speaker is being seen as a big jolt to the Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray (Shiv Sena) led by former Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray, who is the son of Shiv Sena founder, late Balasaheb Thackeray.
