Buoyed by Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar’s ruling to declare his party as the “real Shiv Sena” and reject a plea seeking disqualification of 16 MLAs, including himself, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Thursday took a nasty dig at Sena ( UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray, by saying that “a political party cannot be run like private limited company”.
Amid preparations by the Opposition Shiv Sena (UBT) to move the Supreme Court against the Speaker’s ruling, Shinde dubbed Narwekar’s order virtually declaring his party as the winner in its battle against the Uddhav-led Sena and sparing him and 15 other MLAs from his group of disqualification as the “victory of democracy” and “the victory of the ideologies of late Balasaheb Thackeray and Anand Dighe”.
Talking to media persons after visiting Anand Ashram, an office of his late mentor Anand Dighe, in his home constituency of Thane, Shinde said: “The orders (of Election Commission, Supreme Court and Speaker of Maharashtra Legislative Assembly) are very clear (in the various cases relating to the Shiv Sena that underwent a vertical split in June 2022)... The verdicts are a victory of democracy, all party workers, the ideologies of late Balasaheb and Dighe saheb”.
Ridiculing Uddhav for “running the Shiv Sena like a family business”, Shinde said: “A political party cannot be run as a private limited company in a democracy like ours where numbers and the will of people are important”.
Shinde, whose ‘Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena’ will contest the April-May Lok Sabha and October 2024 State Assembly elections in alliance with the BJP and NCP (Ajit Pawar), said: “We have sought (before bye-election) the name ‘Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena’ as name for our party from the Election Commission, while on the other hand he ( Uddhav Thackeray) sought name Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray). From this, you can imagine what kind of respect that he has for late Balasaheb”.
In a related development, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of the ruling BJP said that the Speaker’s verdict was ample proof to suggest that Maharashtra would continue to have a stable government that would complete its full term.
Meanwhile, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena rushed its party leader, family confidante and party MLC Anil Parab with a copy of the Speaker’s order rejecting his party’s plea for disqualification of 16 party MLAs for “anti-party activities”, to confabulate with senior lawyers on finer points in the verdict, before moving the apex court.
In another measure, the Shiv Sena (UBT) indicated that it would make an issue of the AB Forms that it gave to the party candidates ahead of 2019 State Assembly polls, to contest the Speaker’s ruling in the Sena MLAs’ disqualification case.
Pulling out a social media post put out by Shinde thanking Uddhav Thackeray for issuing the AB Form to contest from Kopri-Pachpakhadi constituency of the Thane district in the 2019 Assembly polls, the Shiv Sena (UBT) said that the Speaker’s order went against the facts on ground.
In his order, the Speaker held that the Shiv Sena’s amended Constitution of 2018 was not on record with the Election Commission and hence what would be considered in adjudicating matters was its 1999 Constitution.