Eknath Shinde faction is real Shiv Sena: Maharashtra Speaker

In a big win for Eknath Shinde, Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar on Wednesday ruled that the Shiv Sena faction led by him was legitimate as he had the support of majority party MLAs.

In a big win for Eknath Shinde, Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar on Wednesday ruled that the Shiv Sena faction led by him was legitimate as he had the support of majority party MLAs. He also ruled that the Shinde faction MLAs cannot be disqualified as then Shiv Sena chief whip, Sunil Prabhu, had no authority to call the legislature meeting.

Pronouncing his order, Speaker Rahul Narwekar said that the 1999 constitution of Shiv Sena has to be taken into consideration as the amended 2018 constitution was not placed before the Election Commission. The 1999 constitution of Shiv Sena removed the concentration of power from the hands of the party chief. However, the amended constitution in 2018 put the power back into the hands of the party chief. Based on this, the Speaker said that Uddhav Thackrey, being the Shiv Sena pramukh (president), did not have the power to remove Eknath Shinde as the leader of the legislative party.

The Speaker said that Sunil Prabhu had no authority to call the legislature party meeting and the Uddhav faction's submission that the rival MLAs did not come for the meeting will have to be rejected.

"On this ground, I hold that Shinde faction cannot be held to be disqualified since it is the real party and Sunil Prabhu ceased to be the whip from the moment the faction emerged," Narwekar said.