Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole has said “traitors” from the party who cross-voted in the recent elections to 11 legislative council seats have been identified and will be punished.

“The same “traitors” had ensured the defeat of the Congress leader Chandrakant Handore in the council elections two years ago,” Mr. Patole claimed on July 13.

“A trap was laid this time and they have been identified. They will be punished so that no one dares to betray the party again,” Mr. Patole told reporters in Mumbai, without taking any name.

Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut, while talking to reporters on July 14, said the Congress has accepted that cross-voting took place and they will take action accordingly.

“The Central government is going to observe the imposition of Emergency as ‘Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas’. Isn’t it unconstitutional to get MLCs elected by MLAs who are facing disqualification? Isn’t it unconstitutional to purchase MLAs by bribing them? BJP is the real murderer of the Constitution,” Mr. Raut alleged.

Following a split in the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the Shiv Sena (UBT) headed by Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP) had moved court seeking disqualification of MLAs of the parties led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Ajit Pawar.

The ruling ‘Mahyuti’ in the State, comprising the Shiv Sena led by CM Shinde, the BJP and Ajit Pawar-headed NCP, on July 12 won all the nine seats it contested in the biennial elections to 11 seats in the legislative council.

The Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) faced a setback as a candidate backed by Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP) lost. At least seven Congress MLAs defied the party’s directive while voting, results showed.

“The Congress, which has 37 MLAs, had fixed a quota of 30 first preference votes for its candidate Pradyna Satav, and seven remaining votes were to go to Milind Narvekar, candidate of the ally Shiv Sena (UBT),” party sources earlier said.

Eventually, Mr. Satav got 25 and Narvekar 22 first preference votes, which meant at least seven Congress MLAs cross-voted. Jayant Patil of the Peasants and Workers’ Party (PWP), supported by the NCP (SP), lost.

The 288-member legislative Assembly, with current strength of 274, was the electoral college for the council polls. Each winning candidate required 23 votes.

The BJP is the largest party in the Assembly with 103 members, followed by the Shiv Sena-38, NCP- 42, Congress-37, Shiv Sena (UBT)-15 and NCP (SP)-10.

Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and VBA president Prakash Ambedkar.
| Photo Credit: ANI

Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi chief Prakash Ambedkar on July 7 said the VBA’s alliance with the Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray is broken.

The VBA was part of the INDIA grouping before it walked out of the opposition bloc over disagreement on the number of seats allotted to it in Lok Sabha elections. Before joining the INDIA alliance, VBA had allied with Shiv Sena (UBT).

“It’s (the alliance) broken. There is nothing left in it,” Mr. Ambedkar said in response to a question on the alliance with Shiv Sena (UBT).

Grandson of Dr B.R. Ambedkar, Prakash Ambedkar contested from the Akola Lok Sabha seat but lost to BJP’s Anup Dhotre.

The Shiv Sena (UBT) and VBA sealed an alliance in January 2023.

Mr. Thackeray had said his grandfather Keshav Thackeray, also known as Prabodhankar, and Prakash Ambedkar’s grandfather, B.R. Ambedkar, were contemporaries who admired each other.

Mumbai:

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray on Monday said his party will seek legal recourse over the Mumbai North West Lok Sabha seat result, claiming victory was snatched from their candidate by “misuse” of the official machinery.

Addressing a press conference, Mr Thackeray said a petition regarding the “electoral malpractice” will be filed in the court in a day or two.

He termed as “fraud” the result of the Mumbai North West Lok Sabha seat, where Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate Amol Kirtikar lost by 48 votes to rival Ravindra Waikar of the Shiv Sena led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

“There is an ongoing debate on the election process and EVMs. I have already said Election Commission is an ‘entirely compromised’ commission,” Mr Thackeray said.

He claimed that if the election process was “free and fair”, the BJP would have won only 40 Lok Sabha seats and not 240.

“Our victory was snatched by misusing the official machinery. We will file an election petition in court, challenging the result of the Mumbai North West Lok Sabha seat,” he said.

Mr Thackeray also said his party expects the EC to take suo motu (on its own) action, otherwise they will fight a legal battle and win.

Sena (UBT) leader and former state minister Anil Parab also said the Election Commission of India should take suo motu action based on the information available and declare Kirtikar as winner.

“The election result declared is suspicious. We are taking legal recourse for the misuse of official machinery under the Representation of the People Act. We are moving the court in a day or two,” he said.

Mr Parab claimed the counting process on June 4 for the Mumbai North West seat was fine till the 19th round but there was no transparency after that.

“Till the 19th round, our tally was 650 votes more than the opposite candidate,” he said.

All the counting agents of political parties tally the number of votes and the returning officer then finalises the number of votes counted, Parab said.

“The returning officer and the counting agents were seated far from each other where the tally of votes wasn’t possible because of the distance. Forms 17 C and 17 C part 2, which account for the number of votes polled, were not given to many candidates…there was a difference of 650 votes in our tally and that of the assistant returning officer till the 19th round,” he claimed.

Notably, the Vanrai police in Mumbai have registered a case against Waikar’s brother-in-law for allegedly using a mobile phone at a counting centre in Goregaon (which is part of Waikar’s constituency) on June 4, when results of the general elections were announced.

Mr Parab said a mobile phone was used in an unauthorised manner and there is a doubt that the seized phone may have been changed after 10 days.

“A probe is also needed into the constant phone calls to the returning officer of the Mumbai North West Lok Sabha seat. She would move away from her seat several times to talk on phone,” he claimed.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned the Maharashtra Speaker’s ruling on the Sena vs Sena dispute – in which the faction led by Eknath Shinde was declared the “real Sena” based on its “discernible legislative majority” – and asked if the conclusion was contrary to its instructions.

A bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud made the oral observation as it heard pleas from the Uddhav Thackeray-led faction (or what was the united Shiv Sena) challenging Speaker Rahul Narwekar’s decision to not disqualify the MLAs – including Mr Shinde – who had switched to the BJP.

The court ordered the Speaker’s office to submit all original records pertaining to disqualification pleas filed by Mr Thackeray’s camp, and asked Mr Shinde’s camp to file a reply by April 1.

The summoning of records was in response to forgery allegations by the Shinde faction.

The next hearing will be in the second week of the same month, the court said, adding, it will also hear then objections by the Shinde side – that this matter is worthy of being heard by the top court.

The court also said it was keeping open the issue of maintainability of the petition.

READ | Thackeray Approaches Court Over Speaker’s “Real Shiv Sena” Decision

On January 10, Rahul Narwekar ruled in favour of the Shinde faction, calling it the “real Shiv Sena” and holding, therefore, that disqualification of its MLAs could not be sought by the Thackeray faction.

READ | Eknath Shinde Faction Is “Real Sena”, Says Speaker

He said he was relying on the legislative strength of the Shinde camp; his final ruling noted it had a strength of 37 of 55 seats (won by the then united Sena in the 2019 Assembly election).

However, in May last year, the Supreme Court had said the Speaker should not base his decision on “a blind appreciation of which group possess a majority in the Legislative Assembly”. The Constitution Bench of the court said a decision on the “real Sena” was more than numbers.

An incensed Mr Thackeray had called Mr Narwekar’s decision an “insult to the Supreme Court and (a) murder of democracy”. The former Chief Minister said the Speaker made a “thief” – a jab at to Eknath Shinde – “master of the House”, and had exceeded the brief given to him by the court.

READ | “Why Were We Not Disqualified,” Thackeray Questions Speaker

“The court had given a framework but he distorted it into something else… he thinks he is above the Supreme Court. He should have made laws against party-hopping stricter but was busy clearing a path for himself,” he said, pointing out also Mr Narwekar had “changed parties many times”.

After splitting in June 2022, the factions served a clutch of disqualification notices against each other. The Thackeray faction sought the removal of as many as 40 Shinde camp MLAs, which, in turn, wanted 14 of its rivals disqualified. The Speaker, though, had dismissed all these petitions.

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Mumbai:

As the Congress labours through intense seat negotiations with INDIA bloc allies ahead of the national election, Rahul Gandhi dialled Uddhav Thackeray yesterday to discuss the deadlock over eight of Maharashtra’s 48 seats.

Rahul Gandhi, who is in the middle of a Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, reportedly spoke to the Shiv Sena (UBT) leader for an hour.

The Congress, say sources, want to contest three of Mumbai’s six Lok Sabha seats – Mumbai South Central, Mumbai North Central and Mumbai North West. Uddhav Thackeray reportedly wants to contest 18 Lok Sabha seats in the state, including four in Mumbai – Mumbai South, Mumbai North West, Mumbai North East and Mumbai South Central.

For the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance of Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena, Sharad Pawar’s NCP and the Congress, the seat talks are entirely uncharted territory as the parties formed the ideologically mismatched alliance after the last Lok Sabha election in 2019. The three have managed an agreement on nearly 40 seats but negotiators are stuck on eight seats.

The undivided Shiv Sena fought 22 of 48 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and won 18, including three in Mumbai.

Uddhav Thackeray’s party ended its 25-year alliance with the BJP months later, after failing to agree on power-sharing terms following the Maharashtra state polls.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi government collapsed after the Shiv Sena split and Eknath Shinde’s faction formed a new government with the BJP.

Earlier this year, Sharad Pawar’s NCP suffered a similar rupture, with the veteran’s nephew Ajit Pawar joining the Eknath Shinde-BJP coalition government.

The Congress fears a similar exodus after two of its prominent leaders in Maharashtra, former chief minister Ashok Chavan, and Milind Deora, crossed over to the BJP.

The defections have complicated the seat negotiations for the Maharashtra opposition allies.

Sources say Uddhav Thackeray’s party, after the Congress defections, wants a greater share in Mumbai seats.

However, sources assert that Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar, Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge are all determined to make it work, aware that for each party, it is a battle for survival.

The Congress recently sealed difficult seat sharing deals with Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party.

The party has also redoubled efforts to close a deal with Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has refused to part with more than five of her state’s 42 seats.