New Delhi: Maharashtra speaker Rahul Narwekar ruled Wednesday that the Shiv Sena faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde was the real Shiv Sena.
Narwekar was adjudicating the cross-petitions filed by the two factions of the Shiv Sena seeking the disqualification of each other’s MLAs following the split in June 2022.
He said the Shinde faction had an overwhelming majority of 37 out of 55 MLAs when the rival factions emerged.
“From my analysis, observations, conclusions and findings… I hold that the Shinde faction was the real Shiv Sena political party when rival factions emerged on 21 June 2022,” he said.
He refused to disqualify MLAs from either faction.
Narwekar’s decision came more than 18 months after the party fractured, a political development that resulted in a change of guard in the state.
In June 2022, Sena leader Eknath Shinde and several MLAs rebelled against then chief minister and Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray, leading to the fall of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, which also comprised the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress.
The Shinde group joined hands with the BJP to form the present government. Shinde became chief minister while the BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis was appointed his deputy.
Cross-petitions were then filed by the Shinde and Thackeray factions before the speaker seeking action against each other under the anti-defection law.
After appeals went to the Supreme Court, the apex court last May held it could not restore the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government as Uddhav Thackeray had resigned without facing a floor test. The court directed Narwekar to adjudicate the pleas.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission gave the ‘Shiv Sena’ name and the original ‘bow and arrow’ symbol to the Shinde-led faction, while the one headed by Thackeray was renamed ‘Shiv Sena (UBT)’ with the ‘flaming torch’ as its symbol.
In July last year, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar also broke away from the parent party and joined the Shinde Sena and BJP government in Maharashtra. Ajit Pawar is also a deputy chief minister in the present government.
Assembly polls in Maharashtra are due in the second half of 2024.
This report has been updated with additional information
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