Maharashtra: Senior lawyer Abhishek Singhvi meets Uddhav Thackeray

Uddhav Thackeray. File Photo

Senior lawyer and Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi reportedly met Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray at his residence in Mumbai on Saturday.

Singhvi is part of the legal team representing the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena in the Supreme Court, where the party is seeking to disqualify members of the Eknath Shinde faction who rebelled against Thackeray in 2022, which split the party and led to the collapse of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government.

According to the PTI report, 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 reportedly 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, reported PTI.

As per the PTI report, the top court reportedly issued notices to the chief minister and other lawmakers of his group on the plea of Prabhu, a leader of the Uddhav Thackeray faction.

As per the PTI report, 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 reportedly 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 reportedly 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, reported PTI.

Meanwhile, in a recent development, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said on Friday that the victory of all nine Mahayuti (ruling alliance) candidates in the Legislative Council polls was a trailer ahead of the state assembly polls later this year, reported the PTI.

Talking to reporters, CM Eknath Shinde said that a false narrative was set by the opposition in the Lok Sabha elections 2024 and people were misled.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won five seats, while Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) bagged two each, giving the ruling alliance wins on nine of the 11 seats for which polls were held earlier in the day.

From the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), Milind Narvekar, a close aide of Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, and Congress candidate Pradnya Satav won. However, Peasants and Workers' Party (PWP) candidate Jayant Patil, who was supported by Sharad Pawar's NCP (SP), lost the polls.

(With inputs from PTI)