Shinde faction teases Thackeray with victory banners after speaker’s verdict

Raut on Wednesday said his party will challenge the Maharashtra assembly speaker’s order. Talking to reporters, Raut termed the order as a “conspiracy”, and called the verdict “death of democracy”

The Eknath Shinde faction took to the streets on Thursday with banners hailing the assembly speaker’s verdict declaring Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde as the true successor of the Shiv Sena.

Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde during a public rally after the Speaker’s verdict (Twitter/@mieknathshinde)

The Shinde faction workers put up banners outside the Matoshree, the official residence of Uddhav Thackeray. In the Kalanagar area in Bandra East, the workers displayed banners teasing Thackeray saying, ‘Shinde is the real successor’ with the image of the chief minister showing a victory sign.

In a major blow to the Uddhav-led faction in Maharashtra, state assembly speaker Rahul Narwekar on Wednesday announced that the Shinde faction was the real Shiv Sena. Delivering the verdict of the Sena versus Sena case, the assembly speaker ruled that Thackeray had no power to remove Shinde from the post of legislature party leader.

The UBT faction has already approached the Supreme Court claiming that the Shinde met with the assembly speaker to “fix” the verdict.

On the other hand, Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Ram Kadam said that he will file a breach of privilege motion against Shiv Sena (UBT) leader MP Sanjay Raut and MLA Aditya Thackeray.

“Both Raut and Aditya Thackeray have used derogatory words for the state legislature while commenting on the speaker’s judgement. This is an insult to the state legislature,” Kadam said.

Meanwhile, Raut on Wednesday said his party will challenge the Maharashtra assembly speaker’s order. Talking to reporters, Raut termed the order as a “conspiracy”, and called the verdict “death of democracy”.

Slamming the decision, Rajya Sabha member Kapil Sibal on Thursday said that the Maharashtra assembly speaker turning down the pleas demanding disqualification of Shinde faction’s lawmakers was a “play scripted long ago”.