Mumbai: In a development in Maharashtra that would have a bearing in India’s legislative politics, government-formations and party-splits in years and decades to come, the Speaker on Wednesday legitimised the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena as the real party — in what comes as a major jolt to the Uddhav Thackeray-group, now known as Shiv Sena-UBT.
“All the petitions seeking disqualification of MLAs (16 from Shinde-group and 14 of Shiv Sena UBT) are rejected. No MLA is being disqualified,” said Rahul Narwekar, the Speaker of Maharashtra Legislative Assembly.
After the October 2019 Vidhan Sabha polls, 56 Shiv Sena MLAs were elected.
Uddhav’s father, late cartoonist-turned-politician and orator-par-excellence Balasaheb Thackeray - who stood for the cause of Marathi-manoos and championed Hindutva movement - founded the saffron party on 1966 - but the June 21, 2022 split changed the fate of the saffron party which had been ally of BJP for close to three decades and part of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.
In his order, Narwekar, as the head of a Tribunal following orders of the Supreme Court, however, spared the 16 MLAs of Shinde-faction and 14 MLAs of Thackeray-group from disqualification.
Shinde, a hard-core Shiv Sainik and follower of Balasaheb, who was mentored by late Dharmaveer Anand Dighe, had toppled Uddhav’s Maha Vikas Aghadi government and became the Chief Minister on June 30, 2022 with BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis as Deputy Chief Minister.
While Thackeray said that the order is “murder of democracy” and asserted that he would move the Supreme Court, Shinde said that in democracy “numbers are important” and that “nepotism” would not continue.
In his operative order the dictation of which continued for nearly two hours, Narwekar, a first-time MLA from Colaba, party’s constitution, leadership structure, and the legitimacy of actions undertaken by both factions before he took a call.
While acknowledging Shinde as the leader of the Shiv Sena legislature party, Narwekar also said that Sunil Prabhu of the Sena UBT ceased to be the Whip from June 21, 2022 and that Bharat Gogawale of Shinde-group is the Whip.
“The SS-Shinde faction was a real political party when a rival faction emerged on June 21, 2022. Sunil Prabhu from Shiv Sena-UBT ceased to be the Whip of the party since the rival faction emerged. Bharat Gogawale was validly appointed as whip of Shiv Sena legislature party and Eknath Shinde is validly appointed as leader of the party,” Narwekar said in the operative order, which he dictated for around couple of hours in the Central Hall of the Vidhan Bhavan complex in Mumbai.
“The 1999 party constitution submitted to the Election Commission by the Shiv Sena was the valid constitution for deciding the issues related to leadership. The Shiv Sena UBT group's contention that the amended constitution of 2018 should be relied on was not acceptable….the 1999 constitution made the `rashtriya karyakarini' (national executive) the supreme body….the ‘paksha pramukh’ (party president) does not have the power to remove any leader from the party,” Narwekar said in his order.
"I find that the leadership structure as reflected in the February 2018 letter is relevant and to be taken into account to determine which faction is the real political party,” he added.