Eknath Shinde has directly challenged Uddhav Thackeray by taking most of the Shiv Sena MLAs with him. He has also said that Thackeray should resign if he thinks so. While taking action against Shinde, Thackeray removed him from the post of group leader in the Legislative Council and appointed Ajay Chaudhary in his place. However, Shinde had claimed that the appointment was illegal. On this, today the Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Narhari Jirwal has announced his approval for the appointment of Chaudhary as the group leader.
According to the law, the party leader has to appoint a group leader. The group leader wants to appoint representatives. Uddhav Thackeray has appointed Ajay Chaudhary as the group leader, Jirwal has clarified that he has accepted the letter. "I have accepted the letter signed by Sunil Prabhu. We have not yet received a claim from Shinde that he is with two-thirds of the MLAs. The question is whether he wants to do it or not. If I have a claim, it will be decided as per the facts," Jirwal said.
The letter that Shinde has sent to me from the MLAs has a lot of signatures. Shiv Sena MLA Nitin Deshmukh has objected to his signature. He has informed that his signature is in English, but since the letter is in Marathi, it should not be accepted. Jhirwal also said that an inquiry will be held and a decision will be taken after this. He also clarified that even independent MLAs cannot sign such a letter, which makes it doubtful.