Disqualification row: Politics may seal Shinde’s fate, not legal status
Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar on Monday began the hearing on the matter of disqualification of 16 Shiv Sena MLAs including Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. The matter has been pending for more than a year.
Narwekar had issued notices to all 54 Shiv Sena MLAs including the 14 supporters of Uddhav Thackeray. The party is still undivided in the records of the legislature.
The Speaker has allowed every MLA to appoint two lawyers as his representative. According to a source, Narwekar explained the procedure of the hearing to each MLA. He made them understand that the hearing might take a couple of months to complete and no one should jump to any conclusions in the middle of that.
The party calls the shots
The Supreme Court of India had directed the Speaker to take a call on the matter in “an appropriate time” in May this year. If the apex court’s directives are considered as guidelines, the Speaker needs to take into account the status of the Shiv Sena as a political party before coming to any conclusion.
At that time, the Supreme Court had made it clear that the president of a political party has a right to appoint a whip in the legislature. The whip’s orders to the legislators should be considered as valid and authentic when it comes to voting on a trust motion.
In this case, Uddhav Thackeray was the party chief when Eknath Shinde gathered support from 39 other MLAs in June 2022. Sunil Prabhu was a whip appointed by Thackeray at that time. Shinde had appointed Bharat Gogavale as the party whip when he faced a trust vote on July 8, 2022. However, since Shinde was not the Shiv Sena president when he won the trust vote, Gogavale’s appointment as the whip has been questioned.
If the Speaker holds Sunil Prabhu as whip of Shiv Sena, then Shinde and other 15 MLAs would stand disqualified for violating the whip’s order.
Political permutations
Sources in the Shiv Sena and the BJP claim that the Speaker Rahul Narwekar, a BJP member, will not take a call on this matter until the Lok Sabha elections are over. “A quick decision in this matter may not work in BJP’s favour in the Lok Sabha election,” says a source. “If the MLAs are disqualified that will send a wrong message among the allies. If they are not, we will find it difficult to change the public perception that they are given an undue advantage.”
Narwekar has said that he will give his judgment neither in a hurry nor in leisure. “Every single concerned person will be given a chance to present his side,” he said.
The grapevine has it that Shinde and his supporters will be disqualified if the BJP believes that their utility is over. If the BJP sees Shinde as a trusted and long-lasting ally, then he would survive the test.
