Speaker does not disqualify any MLA, says Shinde faction is real Sena

Uddhav Thackeray called Wednesday’s order a “murder of democracy” and announced that he would challenge Narwekar’s order in the Supreme Court.

Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar ruled on Wednesday that chief minister Eknath Shinde’s party was the real Shiv Sena and turned down the demands to disqualify either faction’s MLAs. His ruling keeps the numbers in Maharashtra Assembly intact, as also Eknath Shinde’s chief ministership.

Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar pronounces the verdict in Shiv Sena MLAs' disqualification on Wednesday. (ANI)

Narwekar said the 10th schedule of the Constitution cannot be invoked to quell intra-party dissent and indiscipline and turned down the demand to disqualify Eknath Shinde and his 38 MLAs from the House. He also rejected the Shinde faction’s plea to disqualify the 14 MLAs from the Thackeray faction, citing certain technical flaws. The pleas for disqualification of Thackeray’s MLAs, he said, was sent to him through an unknown cell phone number rather than by Sena whip Bharat Gogawale.

While Uddhav Thackeray called Wednesday’s order a “murder of democracy” and announced that he would challenge Narwekar’s order in the Supreme Court, Eknath Shinde said, “I have always fought against forces that compromised for political gains and did not have respect for people’s mandate. If one has to protect democracy then the internal democracy of the party also has to be respected.”

The Shiv Sena suffered a vertical split in 2022 when Shinde and 39 other legislators walked out of the party then led by Uddhav Thackeray and joined hands with the BJP. (.HT graphics)

n his detailed ruling on the disqualification petitions filed by rival Shiv Sena factions, Narwekar first determined which faction constituted the real Shiv Sena. For this, he relied on 3 things: legislative majority which is with Shinde; what the original Shiv Sena constitution states about the leadership structure and finally what the leadership structure says about the powers of the party president. Narwekar ruled that the party constitution and its leadership structure were not in conformity with one another.

He considered the party constitution of 1999 available with the Election Commission of India (ECI) and when Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray was still alive. Uddhav Thackeray who assumed presidency of the party upon his death did not convey this change to the ECI. The Thackeray faction claimed that the amendfment stating Uddhav Thackeray was the all-powerful party president was conveyed to the EC in February 2018 when, the party said, he was re-elected for a second 5-year term. The Shinde faction however contested this and the Speaker upheld the contention saying there was no record of the same with the ECI.

“The evidence submitted during the hearing failed to prove that the organisational elections were held on that day (giving all powers to take a call on party affairs to party chief Uddhav Thackeray). In such a scenario, we had to rely upon the constitution on record with the ECI. As such the constitution prevailing in 1999 is the document on record. According to it, the leadership structure is not in conformity with the constitution and failed to provide reliable outcome as to which is the real party,” he ruled.

Narwekar further said that the Shiv Sena’s constitution makes no provision for the post of Paksha Pramukh (as self-conferred by Uddhav in 2018) and that the contention of the Thackeray faction that the will of the party president is synonymous with the will of the party cannot be allowed.

The real political party, he said, was discernible from the legislative majority which existed when the party split on June 22, 2023. “From my analysis I hold that the Shinde faction was the real Shiv Sena party when the two rival factions emerged.”

In the absence of clue from the party’s constitution that the will of the chief and the party were one and the same, it became clear to him that the party which prevailed numerially at the time of the split was the one led by Eknath Shinde. Further,

the Speaker saw the split in the Shiv Sena as a dispute between the two leaders and opined that Thackeray had no authority to remove Shinde from the party.

Shinde was validly recognised as the leader of the party in the legislature from the day Sunil Prabhu, the chief whip appointed by Thackeray was replaced by the whip appointed by the Shinde faction, Bharat Gogawale. Keeping that in mind, the Speaker said, the whip issued by Prabhu for a meeting of all MLAs and for the election of the speaker ahead of the no-confidence motion was invalid. “Thus, the petitions by the UBT faction for the disqualification of the Shinde faction members for voluntarily giving up party membership and anti-party activities stand rejected,” he ruled. Since the Prabhu’s whip was not valid the provisions under 10 schedfule which deals with defection, could not be applied, he said.

Here, Narwekar was at clear variance from the Supreme Court which, on May 11, 2023, had ruled that the appointment of Bharat Gogawale from the Shinde faction as the Shiv Sena party whip was illegal and referred the issue of disqualification to the Speaker. The apex court also said that the decisions of the then Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari were not correct and that if Uddhav Thackeray had not resigned of his own volition, the SC would have reinstated him as the CM.

Narwekar’s order, pronounced over an hour-and-half came on the back of 23 hearings, including cross examination from both the sides that started on September 14th and concluded on December 20th.