Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will not be disqualified, according to Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Should that occur, he would be elected as an MLC and will keep his position.
On October 17, the Supreme Court gave state assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar one more chance to provide it with a reasonable timeline for resolving the cross-petitions that opposing Shiv Sena factions filed to have each other’s MLAs disqualified after the party split last year.
The Sharad Pawar bloc of the NCP and the Uddhav Thackeray group of the Shiv Sena have filed pleas with the top court, hoping to get Narwekar to rule quickly on MLA disqualification cases. The hearing is set for Monday.
“The first thing is that Shinde will not get disqualified,” Fadnavis said in a Saturday interview with TV9 Marathi channel. We will elect him to the Legislative Council, and he will continue to hold the position of Chief Minister even in the event that he is disqualified. Only he will be running for office in the next election.
The state assembly speaker faced harsh criticism from the top court earlier for taking too long to rule on the petitions submitted by the Uddhav Thackeray group seeking the disqualification of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and some of his loyalist MLAs. The court said that the speaker was unable to override the court’s directives.
The Shinde faction has also filed similar petitions for disqualification against MPs who have sided with Thackeray.
The speaker was instructed by the top court on September 18 to specify when the disqualification cases against Shinde and Shiv Sena MLAs who had pledged loyalty to him and teamed up with the BJP to form a new government in June 2022 would be decided.
The court had instructed Attorney General Tushar Mehta to inform the bench of the timetable that the speaker will set for resolving the arguments made by 56 MLAs, including members from the Shinde group, seeking their disqualification.