Who’s the real Shiv Sena?: The fight for Shiv Sena’s control has moved off the streets to the drawing room, where the legal teams of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and rebel Shiv Sena legislator Eknath Shinde are working hard.
Maharashtra Political Crisis Live Updates
The fight for Shiv Sena’s control has moved off the streets to the drawing room, where the legal teams of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and rebel Shiv Sena legislator Eknath Shinde are working to stake claim as the rightful owner of Maharashtra’s ruling party.
In the Shiv Sena’s first concrete move against Mr. Shinde, who is camping in Guwahati and claims the support of around 40 Shiv Sena MLAs and 10 others, Maharashtra’s vice-president Narhari Jirwal replaced Mr. Shinde with Ajay Choudhary in the Sena’s legislature party. Accepted as the leader of
Who’s the real Shiv Sena?: The Deputy Chairman rejected the suggestion of Shri Shinde camp to appoint Bharat Gogawala as the Whip of the Army.
Pressing on his attack, Mr Thackeray asked the deputy speaker to disqualify Mr Shinde and 15 other rebel MLAs, who are camping at a five-star hotel in BJP-ruled Assam.
After the deputy speaker issued notices to the rebel MLAs on the disqualification petition, two independent legislators went straight to the deputy speaker to defend the Mr. Shinde camp – against the deputy speaker Mr. Zirwal for preventing them from disqualifying the legislators. Motion of no confidence was introduced.
Mr Shinde, backed by the rebel MLAs, has said that he will go to the Election Commission and claim the Shiv Sena as his own as he has the numbers.
Who’s the real Shiv Sena?: Two of the Shiv Sena’s allies in Maharashtra – the Nationalist Congress Party, the NCP, and the Congress – have said they will be with Mr Thackeray, whatever happens. Shiv Sena leaders have said that their party is completely focused on the cadre. He said that MLAs come and go, the cadre will remain with Mr. Thackeray.
“We Shiv Sainik hai will fight and win. What they (rebel MLAs) are doing is not possible legally and politically. This is not happening for the first time with Shiv Sena. It happened earlier also but it was all in vain. Even this time it will not be successful,” said Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi.
In a last-ditch effort to save the ruling alliance, the Shiv Sena filed a petition seeking disqualification of the rebel MLAs. Team is unlikely to find more rebel MLAs for Thackeray’s disqualification as it will benefit the BJP.
Shivsena’s game appears to be more on disqualifying some rebels, in order to discourage the rest from facing elections, hence forcing them to return from Assam, where the BJP’s North-East Election strategist Himanta Biswa Sarma is the Chief Minister.
