Ahead of yet another round of fierce arguments in the Supreme Court over the political crisis in Maharashtra, the Uddhav Thackarey-led camp has filed a rejoinder before the top court, saying the Eknath Shinde-led faction is “justifying its act by cooking up a cock and bull story”.
The rejoinder, exclusively accessed by CNN-News18, reads: “It is interesting to see pleadings on behalf of the delinquent MLAs, seeking to justify their anti-party activities by cooking up a cock and bull story as to how they were taken aback by the decision of the party leadership to break ties with their natural ally BJP and form a Government with their natural foes, namely INC and NCP.”
It added that the Shinde faction unashamedly plead without a single supporting document or data that they were let down before the voters of their constituency and therefore did what was necessary to wriggle out of the unnatural alliance.
“The natural ally that they speak of used the Shiv Sena only for their own vested political interests. The so-called natural ally never accorded an equal treatment to the Shiv Sena and always regarded the latter as a second grade partner,” the Uddhav camp said.
It also noted that the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) gave the Shiv Sena its due share in the government by letting the party lead with its own chief minister.
“Several of the delinquent MLAs, including Eknath Shinde, were Cabinet Ministers in the said Government and others held powerful government positions elsewhere as well. Since the day the MVA Government came into power, these delinquent MLAs have always benefited from it. Never have they once complained that there is any disgruntlement amongst the party workers or the voters of their constituencies,” the affidavit said.
The Thackarey-led faction of the party told the apex court that the delinquent MLAs, namely Eknath Shinde and others, came to the top court “with unclean hands, seeking a quia timet [injunction to restrain wrongful acts which are imminent but have not yet commenced] action against the disqualification proceedings initiated against them on a frivolous ground that the notice for the removal of the Dy. Speaker under Article 179(c) of the Constitution had been moved, which disabled the Dy. Speaker from proceeding under the Tenth Schedule”.
The affidavit goes on to say: “When it was pointed out in Court that no such notice was pending since the Dy. Speaker had not taken the same on record doubting the authenticity thereof, on account of it being sent from an unregistered E-mail ID, which fact was duly communicated to the delinquent MLAs by replying to the very same E-mail ID from which the purported notice was received, the Sr. Counsel appearing on behalf of the delinquent MLAs feigned complete ignorance to having received the Speaker’s rejection email.”
It has also been stated by the team of the former Maharashtra chief minister that when the delinquent MLAs have shown absolutely scant regard to the sanctity of the apex court, “it can in no way be expected of them to respect democratic ethos or constitutional values which is now being flagged by them, purely as an afterthought, to cover up their own constitutional sin”.
The affidavit has been filed in response to the counter affidavit and petitions filed by the Eknath Shinde camp. Earlier, the Shinde camp, in its common reply, had said if the legal position put forth by the Thackeray faction is accepted, it will result in minority tyranny within the House and the chief minister who lost confidence of his own party would come in office.
The Supreme Court will on Wednesday continue hearing a bunch of petitions related to the formation of the Eknath Shinde-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, disqualification of rebel MLAs, and the right over the bow-and-arrow symbol.
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