Shinde’s MLAs refuse to open their travel diaries

Cross-questioning of Shinde faction of Shiv Sena’s MLA Dilip Lande, by Shiv Sena (UBT) counsel Devadatt Kamat on Friday circled around the trips made to Guwahati and Surat by the MLAs in 2022. The line of question was extended to the next candidate, Yogesh Kadam, after Lande’s interrogation had concluded

Nagpur: The cross-questioning of Shinde faction of Shiv Sena’s MLA Dilip Lande, by Shiv Sena (UBT) counsel Devadatt Kamat on Friday circled around the trips made to Guwahati and Surat by the MLAs in 2022. (See box.) The line of question was extended to the next candidate, Yogesh Kadam, after Lande’s interrogation had concluded.

HT Image

While Lande remained tight-lipped on the visit, Kadam admitted to travels to Surat and Guwahati with 38 other MLAs but did not share information on expenses and stay, and whether BJP had provided security to them during the stay there.

Both Lande (from Chandivali constituency) and Kadam (from Dapoli constituency) later insisted that neither had received the whip by the then Shiv Sena’s chief whip Sunil Prabhu. They also stated that the email IDs on which the whip was served do not belong to them. Lande said that the his signature on the attendance sheet was taken before the agenda was written. He said that his signature on the resolution passed to remove Eknath Shinde from the post of group leader was fake.

Shinde faction MLAs stuck to the script laid out by the party’s counsel Mahesh Jethmalani, who during the cross-examination of the Thackeray faction candidates had stated that the whips were never issued by Prabhu and the email IDs on which whips were allegedly sent were fabricated.

Before Kadam’s questioning started, he asked the speaker Rahul Narwekar’s permission to correct his submission related to the constitution of the party. He said that he realised that his lawyer had inadvertently submitted a copy of 2018 constitution of the party instead of the one amended in 1999, and that he had realised his mistake only on December 7.

He fielded 77 questions. As most of them were answered in English, Narwekar remarked that the pattern must be followed in subsequent hearings to save time.

The hearing on Friday however witnessed arguments and objections from both the sides. At times Kamat alleged that Shinde faction counsels were signalling the witnesses for the answers. He also objected to re-examination of Lande by Shinde faction counsels who tried to bring on records that the MLA does not understand English and the submissions were in English.

The speaker has given another four days to the Thackeray faction to cross-examine the remaining five witnesses till December 12. The final arguments are expected to be held between December 16 and 20 after which the speaker will take at least eight days to announce the verdict.

Meanwhile, the Thackeray faction has submitted the attendance sheet bearing the signature of the party MLAs. As many as 23 of them are with the Thackeray faction. The attendance sheet was from the legislature party meeting held at Varsha on June 21. The resolution to remove Eknath Shinde from the post of group leader was passed in the meeting. The Thackeray faction is expected to score on it to rubbish the claim that majority of the MLAs were with Shinde. The MLAs from the Shinde faction have been, however, claiming that the sheet was fabricated.