Positions clear, whips out for trust vote – Times of India

MUMBAI: After days of uncertainty about which of the remaining Shiv Sena MLAs would jump ship to join rebel leader and now chief minister Eknath Shinde’s camp, voting for the speaker’s election on Sunday indicated that the positions were settled for now with 16 MLAs finally remaining in Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray’s camp. This clears the air on who is on which side for the confidence vote on Monday.
There was also a major political setback for Thackeray, as the legislature secretariat, following an approval granted by newly elected speaker Rahul Narwekar, retained Shinde as the leader of the Shiv Sena legislature party and approved the appointment of Bharat Gogawale as the chief whip of the Shiv Sena in place of Sunil Prabhu.
The party leadership had on October 31, 2019, appointed Shinde as the leader of the Shiv Sena legislature party. After Shinde left with 39 legislators, Thackeray had replaced him with Ajay Choudhary as the leader of the Shiv Sena legislature party.
Earlier in the day, the Thackeray camp of the Sena, and the Congress and the NCP issued separate whips for its members that directed them not to vote in favour of a confidence motion on Monday. Following the changes, the whip issued by Prabhu will have no legal validity.
According to reports, BJP and the Shinde faction will issue their whips on Monday in favour of the trust vote.
On Sunday for the election of the speaker, both the Thackeray and Shinde camps had issued whips to all 55 Shiv Sena MLAs.
The Shinde camp was able to get BJP candidate Narwekar elected with 164 votes in the assembly. The 16 Shiv Sena MLAs from the Thackeray camp voted for its candidate, Rajan Salvi.
Besides the 39 rebel Shiv Sena MLAs, the Shinde camp has the support of nine MLAs from smaller parties and independents.
The 16 in the Thackeray camp include his son, former environment minister Aaditya Thackeray.
Shinde had returned to Mumbai with his MLAs from Goa on Saturday, bringing down the MVA government 2.5 years after it was formed.
“For now it looks like the rebellion has been stemmed, and 16 Sena MLAs are with the Uddhav camp. It is very unlikely that more MLAs from the Uddhav camp will jump ship. But we will know this only on Monday after the vote of confidence,” an observer said.
Of Narwekar’s 164 votes, 104 votes were from the BJP, 39 from the Shinde camp, one from the MNS, two from Bachchu Kadu’s Prahar Janshakti Party, one from the Rashtriya Samaj Paksha, three from the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi and one from Jan Swarajya Shakti, along with 13 independents.
In the speaker’s election, as Shiv Sena members associated with Shinde defied the Thackeray camp’s whip, they may face disqualification proceedings.
The Thackeray camp also said it would seek disqualification of the Shinde camp. “In all 39 MLAs violated the whip,” said Prabhu.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar had a meeting with the party’s former ministers, legislators and MPs for the appointment of leader of opposition in the assembly. Former Dy CM Ajit Pawar and former water resources minister Jayant Patil are the front runners. “We need an aggressive opposition leader, who will be able to take on both chief minister Eknath Shinde and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis,” the NCP leader said.
State NCP chief Jayant Patil, too, asked the party legislators to be prepared for mid-term polls since the Eknath Shinde-led government will collapse in six months.