MLAs of the Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde have filed separate replies running into thousands of pages to the disqualification notices issued by Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narvekar. Shiv Sena MLA and party spokesperson Sanjay Shirsat said that each MLA has filed a reply running into 6,000 to 6,500 pages. This is not a joint statement, he said. Each MLA has filed a separate reply running into 6,000 to 6,500 pages.
Shirsat is one of the 16 MLAs against whom disqualification notices were issued in June 2022 after rebelling against the then chief minister and undivided Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray. The Thackeray group had filed a petition before the Speaker to disqualify him. The replies have been sent at a tempo, Shirsat said. When contacted, Shiv Sena MLAs Sada Sarvankar and Balaji Kinnikar said they were not aware of how long the replies to the notices were.
Speaking to the media, Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narvekar said that he would not like to discuss the issue at the moment. “The Speaker is a quasi-judicial authority while deciding the disqualification issue. I will not discuss it now and we will proceed according to the process.” Let us tell you that the speaker had issued notice to 16 MLAs to reply on July 7, 2023. The legislators were given seven days to give their reply. The MLAs had sought more time from the speaker to give their reply.
The Uddhav faction has already approached the Supreme Court demanding that the Maharashtra speaker be ordered to pass an order on the disqualification within 15 days. The Supreme Court in its order in May had said that the Speaker of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly has to take a decision on the disqualification proceedings within a reasonable time.
