Mumbai: Maharashtra assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar on Wednesday held that the Eknath Shinde-led faction of the Shiv Sena was the "real political party" when rival groups emerged in June 2022. Reading out his ruling on disqualification petitions filed by Shinde-led Sena and the rival faction led by Uddhav Thackeray against each other's MLAs, Narwekar also said that Sunil Prabhu of the Sena (UBT) ceased to be the whip from June 21, 2022, and Bharat Gogawale of the Shinde group became the authorised whip.

As the tenor of the ruling became clear, celebrations broke out among Chief Minister Shinde's supporters, who burst firecrackers, while Sena (UBT) leaders Sanjay Raut and Aaditya Thackeray said their party will approach Supreme Court against the Speaker’s order.

“All the petitions seeking disqualification of MLAs are rejected. No MLA is being disqualified,” Narwekar said. The Speaker also held that the Shiv Sena ‘pramukh’ (chief) did not have the power to remove any leader from the party. He also did not accept the argument that the will of the party chief and the will of the party were synonymous. The 1999 party constitution submitted to the Election Commision was the valid constitution for deciding the issues, and the Thackeray group's contention that the amended constitution of 2018 should be relied on was not acceptable, he added.

The 1999 constitution made the `Rashtriya Karyakarini' (national executive) the supreme body, he said. “This is BJP's conspiracy and this was their dream that one day they would finish Balasaheb Thackeray's Shiv Sena.

But Shiv Sena won't finish with this one decision. We will go to the Supreme Court,” Raut said. NCP leader Sharad Pawar told reporters that Uddhav Thackeray will have to approach the apex court against the ruling of the Speaker, who gave precedence to the legislature party. Narwekar, in his 105-minute long reading of the order’s main points, said he could not accept petitioner’s ( Uddhav faction) contention that the 2018 party constitution should be relied upon. Shiv Sena constitution of 1999, provided by the Election Commission is the real constitution, he said.

The Shinde group had an overwhelming majority of 37 out of 54 MLAs when the rival factions emerged in June 2022, Narwekar said.