Disqualification Petitions: 'Won't Hurry Into Things', Says Maharashtra Speaker, Rahul Narwekar

With the verdict of the Supreme Court on Thursday (11 May) in response to the petitions concerning the disqualification petitions of the Shiv Sena factions and the matters that arose during the Maharashtra political crisis last year — the power to decide the future course of actions — has now fallen onto the hands of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Speaker, Rahul Narwekar, belonging to the BJP.

Legal experts opine that while the Supreme Court ruled that it cannot restore Uddhav Thackeray as Maharashtra CM, since he had resigned voluntarily without facing a floor test, the decision on deciding the petitions of disqualification of the 16 MLAs, which includes the current CM Eknath Shinde, rests with the Speaker of the assembly.

Furthermore, the SC did not specify any timeframe in which the speaker would need to decide on the disqualification petitions.

This means that for now, the Shinde-led government will continue. Since the appointment of the party whip by the Uddhav faction was found to be legal by the SC ruling, the Maharashtra assembly speaker is now required to consider and hear the petitions on merit to decide on the disqualification.

He further affirmed that he would hear all parties as per principles of natural justice and decide on the matter sometime soon.

Rahul Narwekar is currently outside India.

Further, since he is a member of the BJP, speculations of him being favourable to the incumbent regime are ripe, although the speaker has assured of impartiality and considerations of merits of the petitions in his media briefing.

Previously, the Election Commission had declared the Shinde-led faction as the original Shiv Sena in its order.