Days after pronouncing his judgment in the Sena vs Sena case, Maharashtra Speaker Rahul Narwekar on Tuesday accused leaders of Shiv Sena (UBT) faction of using derogatory language against him.
On January 10, Narwekar dismissed UBT faction’s plea seeking disqualification of MLAs and recognised Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s faction as real Shiv Sena.
“For the last six days, some political leaders and workers have been misleading people about my judgment. Shiv Sena (UBT) is using derogatory language against me. They don’t even respect the Assembly speaker. It’s really harmful to the democratic structure,” the Maharashtra Speaker said.
Narwekar also sought to clarify that the Supreme Court never held Bharat Gogawale’s appointment as Shinde faction’s whip wrong.
“Supreme court never said that appointment of Bharat Gogawale as whip (of Shinde faction) was wrong. SC said that the Speaker must recognise the real Shiv Sena. Because I received claims from both sides, I gave my judgement according to the Supreme Court order,” he said.
Earlier in his verdict, Speaker Narwekar said that Uddhav Thackeray had no power to remove Eknath Shinde as Shiv Sena’s legislative party leader.
“Shinde faction was the real Shiv Sena political party when rival factions emerged on 21st June 2022,” the Speaker said while reading out his verdict.
The Maharashtra Speaker also rejected the disqualification pleas filed by Udhav Thackeray faction against 14 Shinde camp MLAs for violating the whip issued by Thackeray camp for confidence motion on July 4.
“The whip claimed to have been served by Prabhu never reached the Shinde faction members and UBT faction failed to prove so. Thus the petition demanding to disqualify Shinde faction members is rejected,” he said.