Maha lawmakers delay departure as SC to take up Sena’s plea against floor test
Rebel Shiv Sena and Independent lawmakers supporting them, who were due to fly to Goa en route to Mumbai, have delayed their departure and returned to their hotel in Guwahati after visiting a temple.
They are expected to depart after the Supreme Court hears Shiv Sena’s plea against Maharashtra’s governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari’s direction to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray to prove his Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government’s majority in the state legislature on Thursday. The hearing is scheduled for 5pm.
The Sena moved the court after calling Koshyari’s directive unlawful as the disqualification proceedings of 16 of the rebels remained pending. The lawmakers left their hotel shortly after he issued the directive
Rebel Sena leader Ekhanth Shinde, who prayed at Guwahati’s Ma Kamakhya Devi temple along with two other Sena lawmakers and local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushanta Borgohain, earlier said they will arrive in Mumbai on Thursday for the assembly proceedings.
The remaining Maharashtra lawmakers arrived at the temple later in two buses. BJP lawmakers Pallab Lochan Das, Diganta Kalita, and Assam minister Pijush Hazarika accompanied them.
People aware of the matter said 71 rooms have been booked at Goa’s Taj Convention Hotel for the Maharashtra lawmakers. They added it takes around three hours to fly to Mumbai from Guwahati. The Shinde camp does not want to risk getting late for the assembly proceedings. It also does not want to reach Mumbai too early either fearing restrictions on their movement.
The people said a special flight was being arranged to take the lawmakers to Mumbai from Goa on Thursday morning for the assembly proceedings scheduled to begin at 11 am.
The Sena has argued that the court’s interim order on Monday protecting the rebel Shiv Sena legislators from the disqualification proceedings till July 12 was being misused to bring down the Maharashtra government.
Koshyari directed completion of the trust vote proceedings by 5pm on Thursday a day after former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who returned to Mumbai after meeting Union home minister Amit Shah and BJP chief JP Nadda in Delhi, met the governor along with four party lawmakers and submitted letters of support from eight independent legislators.
Fadnavis said they have demanded an immediate floor test and added that 39 Shiv Sena members do not support the government, marking a shift in the BJP’s stance.
The BJP was earlier in a wait-and-watch mode since the political crisis began last week. The rebels camped in the BJP-run states of Gujarat and Assam, but the party refused to make any public statements and maintained that it was an internal Sena matter.
Eknath Shinde-led rebels left for Gujarat’s Surat last week and plunged the MVA government into a crisis before arriving in Guwahati. As days passed, the rebel ranks swelled even as the Sena appealed to deputy speaker Narhari Zirwal to disqualify 16 of the lawmakers. The Shinde faction of the Sena has 39 lawmakers, more than two-thirds needed to legally break away from the party. It has claimed to overall have the support of 50 lawmakers.