New Delhi: The Uddhav Thackeray-led camp of Shiv Sena on Monday approached the Supreme Court challenging the newly appointed Maharashtra Assembly Speaker’s recognition of the whip of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde group as the whip of Shiv Sena. Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the Thackeray camp, told a bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheswari that the newly appointed Speaker has no jurisdiction to recognize whips nominated by Shinde as Uddhav Thackeray is still the head of Shiv Sena official party.
The action is changing the status quo of proceedings before the apex court, he added. “The speaker has no jurisdiction to recognize whips. This is changing the status quo of proceedings before this court. The speaker yesterday at the stroke of midnight elected the whip,” said Singhvi while mentioning the matter for urgent hearing. The apex court posted the matter for hearing on July 11, along with other pending pleas.
On Sunday, the newly elected speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly, Rahul Narvekar, recognized Bharat Gogawale as the new Chief Whip of Shiv Sena and Eknath Shinde as the new Legislative Party leader in the house.
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The Uddhav Thackeray camp had removed Shinde as Legislative Party leader and appointed Ajay Chaudhary to the post while Sunil Prabhu was appointed Chief Whip.
Bharat Gogawale also gave a petition to the assembly speaker for the suspension of 16 MLAs (Thackeray camp) of the party for violation of the whip.
