The Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government on Monday won the floor test in the state assembly. While 164 MLAs voted for the motion of confidence, while 99 voted against it.
Meanwhile, while one Thackeray faction MLA joined the Shinde camp, another voted in favour of the government.
Shinde govt bags majority of 164
Maharashtra assembly speaker Rahul Narvekar announced that the trust vote has been carried by a majority vote. After the death of a Shiv Sena MLA recently, the current strength of the Assembly is reduced to 287, thus the majority mark is 144.
Speaker allows Opposition demand for division of vote
The Opposition raised a demand of division of votes in the trust vote. The trust vote was proposed by BJP’s Sudhir Mungantiwar and Shiv Sena’s Bharat Gogawale.
Allowing the Opposition’s demand, Speaker Narvekar began division of votes and started the process of head count.
1 Sena MLA join Shinde, another vote in favour
Ahead of the floor test, while one Shiv Sena MLA from the Uddhav Thackeray camp, Santosh Bangar, switched over to the Shinde side, another, Shyamsundar Shinde, voted in favour of the confidence vote.
The Shiv Sena currently has 55 MLAs in the 288-member state Assembly.
SC to hear plea of Uddhav faction against move on party whip
The Supreme Court Monday agreed to hear on July 11 a fresh plea of the Uddhav Thackeray faction challenging the decision of the newly-elected speaker of the Maharashtra legislative assembly to recognise the new party whip of Shiv Sena rebels led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
A vacation bench headed by Justice Indira Banerjee said the fresh plea would be heard by the same bench after the summer break on July 11 along with other pending pleas.
“The speaker has no jurisdiction to recognise whips. This is changing the status quo of proceedings before this court. The speaker yesterday at the stroke of pen at midnight elected the whip,” senior advocate AM Singhvi, appearing for the Thackeray group, said.
“I do not have the papers in front of me. Let all of this come up together on July 11,” Justice Banerjee said.
Shinde group cannot claim to be original Shiv Sena: Raut
Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Monday questioned the legitimacy of the faction led by Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde, and said the group cannot claim to be the original Sena.
Raut said the MLAs of the Shinde group should ask themselves some questions. “They used the party symbol and all benefits that come along with it to win election, and then broke the same party. We will definitely contest it in court. The Shinde faction left the Shiv Sena, then how can they claim that their group is the original party, and not the one led by Uddhav Thackeray. The Thackeray name is synonymous with the Shiv Sena,” the Rajya Sabha member said.
Thackeray jolted, legislature removes Shiv Sena LP leader, chief whip
In a major setback for the Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray, the Maharashtra legislature secretariat has struck down appointments of Ajay Chaudhary as the Shiv Sena legislature party leader and chief whip Sunil Prabhu.
The action came late on Sunday. The legislature has accorded recognition to the Sena rebel leader, now chief minister Eknath Shinde, as the SSLP and the rebel group’s nominee Bharat Gogawale as the chief whip.
Sena Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut on Monday slammed the state legislature secretariat move and said the party is prepared for a long-drawn legal battle against the decision.
