In a huge setback to Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray, Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar ruled on January 10 that Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s faction was the ‘real Shiv Sena’ when the rival factions emerged on June 21, 2022. He also rejected disqualification petitions filed against 30 Shiv Sena MLAs from both factions, including Mr. Shinde himself, citing a lack of valid grounds.
Reading out his ruling on the disqualification petitions filed by the rival factions against each other’s MLAs, Mr. Narwekar also said that Sunil Prabhu, who belonged to the Thackeray faction, had ceased to be the whip from June 21, 2022, and Bharat Gogawale of the Shinde group had then become the authorised whip.
Also read: Explained | How did the Thackeray vs Shinde battle intensify after the EC order on Shiv Sena?
In June 2022, Mr. Shinde and several other MLAs rebelled against then-Chief Minister Mr. Thackeray, leading to a split in the Shiv Sena, which had been founded by the late Bal Thackeray. It also led to the fall from power of the ruling coalition, the Maha Vikas Aghadi, which also comprised the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress, apart from the Shiv Sena.
No disqualifications
Rejecting the Thackeray faction’s request to disqualify 16 Shinde faction legislators, the Speaker said that there was no valid ground to disqualify them. No party leadership can use the provision of the 10th Schedule for dissent or indiscipline within the party, he added. He also rejected the disqualification of 14 MLAs of the Thackeray faction, as the whip was not physically served on them.
In fact, the Speaker dismissed all petitions seeking the disqualification of MLAs, saying, “No MLA is being disqualified.”
Mr. Narwekar ruled that the conduct of the Shinde faction could not attract disqualification and that MLAs going incommunicado could not be considered grounds for disqualification. “The Sena (UBT) has also submitted newspaper reports. They can’t be the grounds to expel the legislators… Not attending the meeting also does not attract disqualification,” he said. “None of the Shinde faction MLAs were served the whip for June 21 meeting. Thus the contention for disqualification is rejected,” he added.
After the rebellion, Mr. Shinde went on to become Chief Minister, with the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party. In July last year, the Ajit Pawar faction of the NCP also joined his government.
‘Murder of democracy’
Terming Mr. Narwekar’s verdict as the “murder of democracy”, Mr. Thackeray said that his party would not accept it and would move the Supreme Court. “It was a match-fixing… We are challenging it in the apex court,” he said. His alliance partners, the Congress and the NCP, came out in his support.
Mr. Shinde, on the other hand, said that numbers were important in a democracy, pointing out that his Shiv Sena faction holds a majority against the rival faction led by Mr. Thackeray, adding that the party chief’s individual opinion could not represent the entire party. He also highlighted the Election Commission of India’s allocation of the Shiv Sena name and symbol to his party.
The ‘real’ Shiv Sena
Pronouncing the judgment, Mr. Narwekar said that he had prima facie determined who was the political party as per Supreme Court directives. “Which faction is the real political party is discernible from the legislative majority which existed when the rival factions emerged,” he said, adding that this could be inferred from the Shinde faction resolutions from 2022 and the admitted position from the UBT faction’s initiation of petitions against 38 Shinde faction legislators.
He said he had considered the Shiv Sena’s relevant constitution and leadership structure while deciding which faction was the real political party when the two factions emerged. He rejected the Shiv Sena (UBT)’s demand to consider an amended party constitution, and gave the order on the basis of its old and unamended 1999 constitution.
Conflicting claims
The Speaker acknowledged conflicting claims about who held the majority in the 2018 leadership structure within the party, noting that, based on the available evidence, no elections were held in 2013 and 2018. The Speaker stated that the constitution submitted to the ECI, not the 2018 amended version, was crucial for determining the real political party. He pointed out that the Shiv Sena had not submitted any constitution to the Speaker of the house and thus, the 2018 amended constitution could not be considered valid.
Mr. Narwekar said that no consensus on the party constitution had been submitted to the ECI. “The two parties have different points of view on leadership structure. The only aspect is the majority in the legislature party. I will have to decide the relevant constitution to be taken into account [based on] the leadership structure that existed before the dispute,” he said.
Speaking on the leadership structure, the Speaker ruled that Mr. Thackeray had no power to remove Mr. Shinde from the post of the legislature party leader, as the Shiv Sena constitution made the Rashtriya Karyakarini, or national executive, the party’s supreme body. He added that the Speaker had no role to play in the tussle between warring political leaders.
The Supreme Court had earlier directed the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Speaker to deliver his judgment on the disqualification petitions filed by the rival factions by January 10. Assembly polls in the State are due in the second half of 2024.
