CM Shinde claims - 'Most of the MLAs of Shiv Sena...'?
At a time when maharashtra assembly Speaker rahul Narvekar is about to give his decision on the disqualification petitions filed by both factions of shiv sena, state chief minister Eknath Shinde on tuesday said that the numerical strength is in favor of his led Shiv Sena. Shinde said that even the election commission has admitted that most of the shiv sena MLAs are with his faction. cm said, “Numbers are important in democracy. We have majority in the assembly and Lok Sabha. The election commission has allotted the official name and symbol to our party. I believe and hope that the decision will be based on merit.”
In june 2022, Shinde and several other shiv sena MLAs rebelled against then chief minister uddhav thackeray, leading to a split in the shiv sena and the fall of the maha Vikas Aghadi coalition government. After this, thackeray and Shinde groups filed petitions against each other's MLAs and demanded disqualification under the anti-defection law. Of the 56 MLAs of undivided shiv sena, 40 are with Shinde.
Earlier, maharashtra Deputy chief minister devendra fadnavis said that whatever be the decision of the assembly Speaker in the disqualification case of MLAs, it will have no impact on the Shiv Sena-BJP coalition government and the government will remain stable. The senior leader of the bharatiya janata party said that the coalition government is legally valid and hoped that the decision of the assembly Speaker will provide justice to the MLAs. maharashtra assembly Speaker rahul Narvekar will on wednesday deliver his verdict on the disqualification petitions against chief minister Shinde and other MLAs, whose rebellion had led to the split in shiv sena in june 2022. The supreme court had fixed december 31, 2023 as the deadline for delivering the verdict, but a few days before that, on december 15, the apex court extended the period by 10 days and set a new date of january 10 for delivering the verdict.