Under the leadership of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, the Shiv Sena stated on Friday that they possess a strong moral and constitutional case and appealed to Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar to take a decision on the disqualification pleas of MLAs at the earliest.
While we understand the process and the time required to take this decision. We have a strong moral and constitutional case, backed by the will of the legislative party, parliamentary party, workers and voters of the Shiv Sena, the Shinde-led group said in a statement. Our politics is deeply committed to the values and principles of our late founder Hindu Hriday Samrat Shri Balasaheb Thackeray. Uddhav Thackeray misled us and compromised on our core value system, it added.
The Shinde group's statement said the Election Commission of India allotted it the name Shiv Sena and bow and arrow, in the process recognising it as the original party founded by Bal Thackeray. The decision of the Election Commission was on a test on majority as the MLAs supporting the Eknath Shinde group had got nearly 76 per cent of the votes polled for the 55 winning Shiv Sena candidates in the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly elections, while the Uddhav Thackeray faction got only 23.5 per cent of votes, it added.
The Uddhav Thackeray and Shinde factions of Shiv Sena broke last year, and the former filed petitions with the Speaker requesting the disqualification of various MLAs who supported the chief minister.