Sunil Prabhu, leader of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) faction has approached the Supreme Court challenging the decision of the Maharashtra Speaker Rahul Narwekar holding that Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led faction was the “real Shiv Sena” and dismissing their plea seeking disqualification of the rival faction’s 38 MLAs.
The Speaker on January 10 held that the Shinde’s faction was the real Shiv Sena and also held that Bharat Gogawale was the chief whip of the party. Thereby holding that all the Shiv Sena members were obligated to follow the chief whip. The Speaker had also dismissed Sena (UBT) faction’s plea to disqualify the rival faction’s MLAs.
Speaker’s decision “unconstitutional”
The plea filed in the apex court through advocate Asim Sarode has challenged the Speaker’s decision terming the same as “unconstitutional”.
The Speaker has said: “I hold that the Shinde faction was the real political party when the rival faction emerged on June 21, 2022… Shinde faction had an overwhelming majority of 37 of the 55 MLAs when rival factions emerged.”
Opposing this, the Shiv Sena (UBT) has said that the Speaker has given too much importance to the legislative party majority. Also, the Speaker failed to understand that it is the law that decides defection.
One of the major guiding factors in the Speaker’s decision was that Shiv Sena (UBT) had not registered its party’s 2018 Constitution with the Election Commission of India (ECI). Hence, the original 1991 Constitution which was given to the ECI before the rival factions emerged was the real Constitution of the party.
Plea contends that Speaker got misguided about real Shiv Sena Constitution
Prabhu’s plea before the apex court contends that the Speaker got misguided about which is the real Shiv Sena Constitution, without understanding that Uddhav Thackeray is the Shiv Sena Shakha Pramukh (Party President). It was the duty of the ECI to get the amended Constitution on record after it was informed that the party Constitution had been amended by the Shakha Pramukh Uddhav Thackeray. If the ECI did not take the same on record then it is their fault, added the plea.
