Speaker supporting Eknath Shinde delay tactics: Thackeray Group
Uddhav Thackeray faction cried foul over Speaker Rahul Narwekar granting two weeks to both factions to exchange their submissions. The Thackeray camp alleged that the Speaker was supporting Shinde faction's 'delaying tactics.'
«It is clearly seen that they are trying to take as much time as possible.
The Supreme Court verdict on the issue is quite clear: It has held replacing Sunil Prabhu (Thackeray group) as whip was illegal. They (Shinde faction) want to delay the process till the elections,» Ravindra Waikar, one of the 14 MLAs in the Thackeray faction, alleged.
«The Shinde camp had sought time saying that they haven't got our submission, but the Speaker should have it to them; this was not our job. These are just delaying tactics,» Waikar told a news conference in Mumbai on Thursday.
Earlier in the day, the Shinde and Thackeray camp MLAs, along with their lawyers, came to the Maharashtra legislature complex for the hearing.
Devadutt Kamat, the lawyer who had argued for the Thackeray camp in the Supreme Court, appeared for the faction and sought a quick hearing as the details of the case were made clear by the Supreme Court order in May.
SC had said that although it could not reinstate the Uddhav Thackeray's Maha Vikas Aghadi government as he had resigned, the Thackeray group MLA Sunil Prabhu was the chief whip of the Shiv Sena and not Bharat Gogawale, who was appointed by the Shinde group.
The Thackeray group asked for the hearing to be completed within a week. Sources said that the Thackeray camp was readying itself to petition the Supreme Court in case of delay.
