Express News Service
MUMBAI: Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Sunday won the first round of his fight against the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena in the state Assembly when his government managed to get the ruling coalition’s candidate elected as Speaker.
The government is scheduled to take its confidence vote on Monday. BJP’s candidate Rahul Narwekar won by 57 votes against Maha Vikas Aghadi’s joint candidate Rajan Salvi.
Narvekar was supported by the Shinde group. He got 167 votes against Salvi’s 107. SP and MIM members abstained. Besides, seven NCP MLAs were absent, including Nawab Malik and Anil Deshmukh, who are in jail. Two members each from BJP and Congress failed to show up.
Thackeray’s Sena asked acting speaker Narhari Zirwal to take on record that 39 Sena MLAs in the Shinde camp cross-voted against the party whip. Parallelly, the Shinde camp put on record that 16 Sena MLAs crossed-voted. Deepak Kesarkar, spokesperson of the Shinde camp, said its chief whip Bharat Gogawale had asked all Sena MLAs to vote Narwekar, who has become the youngest Speaker of Maharashtra.
Constitutional experts said since both camps have complained against cross-voting, the Speaker will hear the matter and give his verdict. “Only after that can they can approach a court against the Speaker’s decision, if necessary,”
Meanwhile, Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant on Sunday wondered whether the proper Constitutional procedure was followed to elect the new Speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly and said questions are raised regarding how the Shiv Sena rebel faction is trying to appropriate the original party.
Rahul Narvekar of the BJP was on Sunday elected Speaker on the first day of its special session with MLAs from the Eknath Shinde faction also voting in his favour.
Narvekar, who polled 164 votes, defeated Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena candidate Rajan Salvi, who got 107 votes.
“The dispute between the 39 rebel MLAs of Shiv Sena and 16 legislators who stayed with the original party will be resolved only in the Supreme Court. There are several questions of legitimacy the way the Eknath Shinde government came to power (in alliance with BJP) and carried out the Speaker’s election. Did the entire procedure take place within the framework of the Constitution?” Sawant, also chief spokesperson of Shiv Sena, questioned.
He said the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena had even issued a whip (asking all the MLAs to vote in favour of Salvi) but the rebel MLAs did not budge.
“We have complained against them to the Speaker,” he said.
Commenting on Shinde-led Sena MLAs’ stand, Sawant said, “This may be the first such case wherein the rebels are calling their faction as the original party.”
Shiv Sena factions led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his predecessor Uddhav Thackeray, who heads the party, had issued separate whips to the party legislators to vote in favour of their respective candidates during the state Assembly Speaker’s election.
(With PTI Inputs)
