Rebel Shiv Sena MLAs led by Eknath Shinde on Sunday moved to the Supreme Court challenging the petitioned filed by the Uddhav Thackeray led Shiv Sena before the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Deputy Speaker Narhari Zirwal to disqualify 16 legislators for the breach of whip for not attending the party meeting convened earlier this week. With today’s move, the Shinde camp has taken their battle to the court by roping in a bogey of leading lawyers to plead their case. Shinde camp insiders claimed that they will continue to simultaneously pursue legislative battle also.
The Shinde camp has also challenged the appointment of Ajay Choudhari as the Shiv Sena Legislature Party leader and the rejection of a no-confidence motion against Deputy Speaker Narahari Zirwal. The Shiv Sena has sacked Shinde as the legislature party leader and appointed Chaudhari while Shinde in a counter move claimed he continues to be the legislature party leader and appointed Bharat Gogawale as chief whip replacing the present chief whip Sunil Prabhu.
Two independents Mahesh Baldi and Vinod Agarwal in a letter to Zirwal and Maharashtra Legislature Secretariat have submitted Zirwal cannot take any decision on Shiv Sena’s plea for the disqualification of 16 MLAs when the no confidence motion has been moved against him.
Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant strongly justified the party’s move to serve said disqualification notices to 16 MLAs over their action against the party. “Political turbulence is going on in Maharashtra, many MLAs defected and have gone to Assam. We have initiated legal action against them and notice has been served to 16 MLAs till now,” Sawant said, adding that the notices had been served on grounds that they were all engaged in “anti-party activities”.
Earlier, Shinde camp filed an application with the Maharashtra Legislature Secretariat
seeking the disqualification of the MLAs who are still loyal to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. There are about 15 of the total 55 assembly legislators left with Shiv Sena.
This comes after disqualification notices were served to 16 rebel MLAs on Saturday for not attending a party meeting convened by Uddhav Thackeray earlier this week.
In a related move, the Shinde-led rebel camp on Sunday said that a minimum seven day notice should have been given to reply to any summons/notice instead of two.According to sources, the Shinde camp has asked for more time "as per their rights" and said that they would reply “at the appropriate time”. Their application came a day after the Maharashtra Legislature Secretariat on Saturday served notices to 16 rebels asking them to make their submissions with necessary documents and papers by 5.30 pm on Monday.
The list of 16 legislators included Eknath Shinde, Bharat Gogawale, Sandeepan Bhumre, Abdul Sattar, Sanjay Shirsat, Yamini Jadhav, Anil Babar, Balaji Kinikar, Tanaji Sawant, Prakash Suve, Mahesh Shinde, Lata Sonawane, Chimanrao Patil, Ramesh Bornare, Sanjay Raimulkar and Balaji Kalyankar.
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