In a major victory for Eknath Shinde, Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar ruled on Wednesday that the Shiv Sena faction led by him was legitimate as it had the support of the majority of party MLAs.He also ruled that the Shinde faction MLAs could not be disqualified as the then Shiv Sena chief whip, Sunil Prabhu, had no authority to call the legislature meeting.Delivering his order, Speaker Narwekar said the 1999 constitution of Shiv Sena had to be taken into account 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 Uddhav Thackeray, being the Shiv Sena president, did not have the power to remove Eknath Shinde as the leader of the legislative party.The Uddhav Thackeray faction had sought disqualification of the Shinde faction MLAs on grounds they did not attend the legislature party meeting called by the then chief whip Sunil Prabhu on 21 June. However, the Shinde camp had passed a resolution appointing Bharatshet Gogawale as the chief whip.On this, the Speaker said Prabhu had no authority to call the legislature party meeting and the Uddhav factions claim that the rival MLAs did not attend would have to be rejected.On this ground, I hold the Shinde faction cannot be disqualified as it is the real party and Prabhu ceased to be the whip from the moment the faction emerged, Narwekar said.The verdict comes 18 months after Shinde, along with over 40 Shiv Sena MLAs, rebelled against the then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and brought down the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, which included the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress.The Election Commission had given the Shiv Sena name and bow and arrow symbol to the Shinde-led faction, while the one headed by Thackeray was called Shiv Sena (UBT) with a flaming torch as its symbol.
