Mumbai, Jul 13 (PTI) Senior lawyer and Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi met Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray at his residence in Mumbai on Saturday.
Singhvi is part of the legal team representing the Shiv Sena (UBT) in the Supreme Court where it is seeking to disqualify lawmakers from the Eknath Shinde camp who rebelled against Thackeray in 2022, which split the party and led to the collapse of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government.
The Supreme Court on July 10 agreed to consider listing a plea of the Uddhav Thackeray faction challenging Maharashtra legislative assembly speaker Rahul Narwekar’s order declaring the Shiv Sena bloc led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde as the “real political party” after its split in June 2022.
The speaker had also dismissed the disqualification petitions of the Thackeray faction against CM Shinde and his supporting MLAs.
Singhvi, appearing for UBT leader Sunil Prabhu, had argued that the plea needed to be listed for hearing as even the term of the assembly is nearing its end.
On January 22, the top court issued notices to the chief minister and other lawmakers of his group on the plea of Prabhu, a leader of the Uddhav Thackeray faction.
The Thackeray faction has alleged that Shinde “unconstitutionally usurped power” and is heading an “unconstitutional government”.
In his order passed on January 10, Speaker Narwekar had also rejected the Thackeray faction’s plea to disqualify 16 MLAs of the ruling camp, including Shinde.
Challenging the orders passed by the Speaker, the Thackeray faction has claimed they are “patently unlawful and perverse” and that instead of punishing the act of defection, they reward the defectors by holding that they comprise the real political party.
In his ruling on the disqualification petitions, the speaker did not disqualify any MLA belonging to the rival camps. PTI PR NSK
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