Mumbai: The Maharashtra Governor has asked Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to prove majority tomorrow. Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari has written to the Assembly Secretary Rajendra Bhagwat calling for a special session at 11 am.
Immediately after the demand to prove majority, Team Thackeray approached the Supreme Court claiming the Governor’s request is illegal as 16 rebel MLAs are yet to respond on possible disqualification.
“How can a floor test be asked for when the disqualification of 16 MLA has deferred by the Supreme Court till 11th July? How can these MLAs participate in the floor test till their disqualification status not decided and the other matters for which notice sent is subjudice?” Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi tweeted. “This would be contempt of court proceedings if floor test conducted despite the matter not getting final hearing in the SC [Supreme Court],” she said.
Nearly 40 rebel Sena MLAs led by Eknath Shinde, who are staying at a five-star hotel in Assam’s Guwahati, will move to Goa before returning to Mumbai to participate in the majority test.
Mr Shinde and some of the rebels went to Kamakhya Temple this morning in Assam’s main city by the Brahmaputra River where he told reporters he would return to Mumbai tomorrow.
Team Thackeray had asked the Deputy Speaker to disqualify 16 MLAs including Mr Shinde, after which the rebel camp approached the Supreme Court, calling the move illegal.
The court gave the rebel Sena MLAs time until July 12 to respond to notices for their possible disqualification.
But the Governor has asked Mr Thackeray to prove majority much before the date by which the rebels have been asked to respond.
“The Leader of Opposition…personally visited me…I was briefed about the political situation in the state and thereafter the Leader of Opposition submitted a letter stating that Chief Minister has lost the majority in Vidhan Sabha,” the Governor said in the letter.
The test of majority will be telecast live, and the proceedings will be recorded on camera by the Vidhan Sabha Secretariat through an independent agency, the Governor said. “In order to ensure free and fair voting, it shall be conducted by asking members to rise in their seats for the purpose of counting votes…” Mr Koshyari said.
Mr Shinde claims he has the support of nearly 50 MLAs, some 40 of them from the Shiv Sena. The majority mark currently stands at 144 in the 287-member assembly. The ruling alliance of the Shiv Sena, Congress and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party, or NCP, has 152 MLAs. The state government will shrink to minority without the nearly 40 rebel MLAs.
