A day after Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar declared that the Shiv Sena faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde was “the real political party”, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) president Prakash Ambedkar said on Thursday that the verdict was “on expected lines” and did not come as a surprise.
The VBA and the Shiv Sena (UBT) are alliance partners.
“The Speaker had limitations. The Election Commission of India (ECI) had already allotted the party title and the bow and arrow symbol to the Shiv Sena led by Shinde. Even the Supreme Court (SC) had in the past said it could not reinstate the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government as the decision to resign as CM was taken voluntarily by Thackeray without facing the floor test,” Ambedkar, who is a lawyer, said.
Considering the ECI and SC orders of the past, the only factor the Speaker was left with was disqualification petitions filed by both factions of Shiv Sena, Ambedkar argued. “Therefore, the Speaker’s role and scope was limited to the disqualification aspects. He neither disqualified MLAs from Shinde Sena nor Shiv Sena (UBT),” Ambedkar said, adding that Narwekar’s decision was based on the same arguments cited by ECI while awarding the party name and symbol to the Shiv Sena led by Shinde.
“Therefore, the Speaker’s order within the given scope cannot be questioned. It was on expected lines,” Ambedkar said.
However, he admitted the order was a setback to Thackeray. “Our sympathy is with Uddhav Thackeray and his party. We are confident we will together take the fight against the BJP to the people in the Lok Sabha polls,” he added.
In November 2022, Ambedkar and Thackeray decided to join hands and fight against the BJP. However, the VBA is not a part of the Opposition INDIA alliance or the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition.