Sena vs Sena: Uddhav Thackeray had no power to remove Eknath Shinde, says Maharashtra Speaker Rahul Narwekar

Dealing a severe blow to the Uddhav Thackeray-led faction, Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar on Wednesday ruled that the Eknath Shinde-led group is the real Shiv Sena in the Assembly and its MLAs cannot be disqualified. Former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had no power to remove Eknath Shinde following a mutiny in the Shiv Sena ranks, Narwekar stated. 

The Shiv Sena suffered a split in 2022 after a group of MLAs joined hands with the BJP to revolt against the party leadership. The move had led to the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government with both factions filing disqualification petitions against each other.

“Shiv Sena constitution provides that the national executive is the highest body. Claims by Thackeray faction that the will of the paksh pramukh is the will of the party cannot be accepted. The constitution says that the paksha pramukh has no absolute power and they have to be exercised in consultation with the national executive,” he asserted.

Narwekar said the UBT faction did not submit any material to prove that the national executive meeting was held to decide which faction was the real party following the split. 

“Shinde faction was the real Shiv Sena political party when rival factions emerged on 21st June 2022,” he added.

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The Speaker said that the Uddhav Thackeray group’s submission to consider Shiv Sena 2018 constitution cannot be accepted. The Speaker instead relied on the 1999 constitution of the Shiv Sena — given by the Eknath Shinde-led faction — as the 'valid constitution'. A 2018 edition of the guidelines was deemed invalid as it does not feature on Election Commission records.

“The constitution of Shiv Sena provided by ECI is the relevant constitution of Shiv Sena for the determination of which faction is the real political party,” he said.

“In view of the evidence and records before me, prima facie indicates that no elections were held in the year 2013, as well as in the year 2018. However, I as the speaker exercising jurisdiction under the 10th schedule have limited jurisdiction and cannot go beyond the record of the ECI as available on the website and hence I have not considered this aspect while determining the relevant leadership structure. Thus, given the above conclusions, I find that the leadership structure of Shiv reflected in the letter dated 27th February 2018 available on the website of the ECI is the relevant leadership structure which has to be taken into account for the purpose of determining which faction is the real political party...” he added.

The Shiv Sena suffered a split when a group of MLAs led by Shinde revolted against the party leadership and joined hands with the BJP to form the government. The revolt led to the collapse of the three-party MVA government headed by Thackeray. Shinde later took over as chief minister.

(With inputs from agencies)