Mumbai: In the first public outreach programme by his party since Maharashtra Speaker Rahul Narwekar held Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s faction as the “real Shiv Sena” last week, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) chief Uddhav Thackeray said Tuesday that he had “come to the people for justice”.
The outreach programme, titled ‘Janata Nyayalaya’, or people’s court, was held at Worli — an assembly constituency currently held by Uddhav’s son Aditya — and saw former Maharashtra CM Uddhav trying to rally support against Narwekar’s order.
The Maharashtra speaker’s order came months before the general election due in the country in April-May this year, and the Maharashtra assembly election later, in October.
“Now I have final hopes from the Supreme Court but in a democracy, the final verdict is delivered by the public and that’s why I have come to get justice in the court of people,” Uaddhav said to a hall full of people.
On 10 January, Narwekar, a former Shiv Sena leader who’s currently in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), held that Shinde’s faction of the Shiv Sena is the real one. The Speaker, who was pronouncing his ruling on the cross-petitions filed by the two factions of the Shiv Sena seeking the disqualification of each other’s MLAs on the back of a two-month deadline by the Supreme Court to hear the case, however, refused to disqualify legislators from either faction.
Narwekar’s ruling came just under a year after the Election Commission of India officially granted Shinde’s faction of the Shiv Sena rights to the party name and symbol.
The petitions all stem from Shinde’s 2022 rebellion against the then-undivided Shiv Sena under Uddhav. Shinde and his faction of MLAs then allied with the BJP to form the Mahayuti — an alliance that, since July last year, has also comprised Ajit Pawar’s faction of the Nationalist Congress Party. The alliance in power in Maharashtra.
The Shiv Sena (UBT) has challenged both the EC’s order last February, as well as the Maharashtra Speaker’s ruling last week in Supreme Court.
At Tuesday’s event, Uddhav fired a fierce broadside against not only the ruling Mahayuti alliance, but also the EC.
“We must now file another case against the Election Commission in the Supreme Court. We had submitted 19 lakh affidavits to the EC. What they have done with it? Our Shiv Sainiks spent their own money to fill out these affidavits. This is nothing but the scam of EC,” he said.
He also took a swipe at Narwekar, who, in his ruling last week, held that the Shiv Sena’s 1999 constitution (and not the 2018 Constitution) was the valid one for deciding which faction was the real one.
“If the party constitution of 1999 was the last one valid and I was not the party leader or chief of Shiv Sena, then why did the BJP take my signature for support to form the government in the state in 2014 and my support during the Lok Sabha in 2014 and 2019?” Uddhav asked the audience.
In response, Maharashtra Speaker Narwekar has accused the former CM of spreading misinformation about his decision.
“Efforts are being made to spread misunderstanding about the verdict I have given. They have passed remarks against (the) Supreme Court, Speaker, Governor, and the Election Commission. It seems they (Shiv Sena-UBT) don’t trust any institution,” Narwekar said at a media briefing after the Shiv Sena (UBT) event.
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‘Not afraid’
At the people’s court Tuesday, Uddhav tried to shed his reputation of being an inaccessible politician by saying that he will now directly take his case to the public “to decide what’s right and wrong”.
Critics have frequently accused Uddhav, who was chief minister from November 2019 until the fall of his government in June 2021 — following Shinde’s rebellion — of being inaccessible not only to the public, but also to his own ministers.
Also speaking at the event, senior Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Anil Parab presented documents he claimed were submitted to the Speaker for consideration. The apex court, Parab said, had asked Narwekar to consider the party’s constitution and leadership structure, but the speaker chose to rely on his judgment, which was based on the EC’s February 2023 decision.
The 2018 amended constitution of the Shiv Sena reportedly fixed the term of Paksha Pramukh (party chief) Uddhav Thackeray for a period of five years until elections in 2023. He was also reportedly given “highest authority” in the party and he said that his decisions on policy and administrative matters would be final.
In his verdict, Narwekar declared the constitution of the Shiv Sena in 2018 as invalid.
Narwekar said the Shiv Sena (UBT) was relying on a supposedly amended 2018 constitution of the party, while the Shinde-led faction contended that the constitution of 1999 should be taken on record, as the new one was never submitted to the Election Commission.
“If both factions have submitted different constitutions, what should be taken into account is the constitution filed to the EC before the dispute arose… Prima facie, it is evident from records that the 1999 constitution was submitted to the EC by the Shiv Sena before rival factions emerged,” Narwekar opined.
Parab, however, cited documents showing correspondence between Uddhav and the EC from 2013 and 2018 in which Thakeray was addressed as the party president.
“We submitted these documents and proof to the Election Commission but they refused to acknowledge them. Now we will submit this in Supreme Court,” he said.
At the event, he played two video clips purportedly from the Sena’s national executive meetings. The first of these, he claimed, was from Shiv Sena’s a national executive meeting in 2013, months after the death of party founder Bal Thackeray.
According to Parab, at the meeting, the party’s national executive passed several proposals to amend Shiv Sena’s constitution and also put a hold on the post of Shiv Sena ‘pramukh’ or Shiv Sena chief — a position that founder Bal Thackeray held.
Instead, the party created the post of ‘paksha pramukh’ to which Uddhav was elected, he said.
The video showed Narwekar, then in the Shiv Sena, had attended the meeting.
The second video, according to Parab, was from 2018, when Uddhav was once again elected the president of the then-undivided Shiv Sena. At this meeting, Uddhav nominated Eknath Shinde as Shiv Sena leader — the second-highest rank in the party hierarchy.
At a press conference he held after the event, Uddhav was asked what he learnt from the entire episode. “I have now come out in the field and ready to fight. I’m not afraid,” he said in response.
Going forward, there will more more such people’s courts, he said.
“Whether I am right or wrong, let the public decide,” he told the media. If they tell me, I will sit at home. But the question of whether India’s democracy will survive remains,” he said.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
Also Read: How Uddhav is rebuilding his Sena for 2024 after Shinde’s defection blow