Following the Supreme Court's verdict in the Shiv Sena-centric political crisis in Maharashtra that erupted last year,Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray has called for the resignation of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis on moral grounds, in a news conference.
Thackeray slammed former governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari for calling for a floor test and said that he and the deputy chief minister should resign, as he did last year. The five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud held that the Speaker's decision to appoint Bharat Gogawale of the Shinde faction as the whip of Shiv Sena was "illegal."
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In a unanimous verdict on a batch of pleas related to the political crisis, the court held that the Maharashtra governor was not justified in calling for a floor test on June 30, 2020. The court did not order status quo ante since Thackeray did not face the floor test and resigned.
Thackeray said that the verdict has reinstated trust in democracy and that the Shinde faction's MLAs had betrayed his party and his father's legacy. He said that his resignation last year may have been wrong legally, but he did it on moral grounds.
“If the current Maharashtra CM (Shinde) and deputy CM (Devendra Fadnavis) have any ethics, then they should resign after the SC ruling,” he said. Thackeray stated that Speaker Rahul Narwekar must consider Sunil Prabhu as the whip of his Shiv Sena while deciding on the disqualification of 16 rebel MLAs.
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The SC ruled that the Uddhav Thackeray government in Maharashtra cannot be restored as he had resigned as CM on his own last year amid a huge drama that resulted in a vertical split in Shiv Sena.
(With PTI inputs)
