News Analysis India

Tag: Speaker

  • Speaker’s order is murder of democracy, will move Supreme Court: Uddhav Thackeray

    Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday said Maharashtra assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar’s decision holding that the faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde was the real Shiv Sena was a murder of democracy, and his party will move the Supreme Court against it.

    Speaking at a press conference, Thackeray said the apex court had given clear guidelines, but those were ignored by the Speaker while giving his ruling on disqualification petitions filed by the rival Sena factions. The original case was about disqualification under the anti-defection law, but not one lawmaker from either side was disqualified, he said.

    “The foundation on which the order stands is wrong. This is a murder of democracy and an insult to the Supreme Court,” he said, adding that neither the apex court nor the people will accept this decision. His party will approach the SC against the ruling, and will also examine if a contempt petition can be filed against the Speaker, Thackeray said. He would request the apex court to give its decision on the case before the elections, he added. The court had accepted the authority of the whip of the Thackeray faction (Sunil Prabhu) and its group leader (Ajay Chowdhary), he said.

    Narwekar, in his ruling, said Prabhu ceased to be the authorised whip when the split in the party became apparent on June 21, 2022. “Shiv Sena will never be finished and the people of Maharashtra will not accept the Sena of these traitors,” Thackeray, who stepped down as chief minister after Shinde’s rebellion in June 2022, said.

  • Maharashtra CM Shinde passes first hurdles, BJP gets speaker in state assembly 

    Express News Service

    Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde won the first litmus test of state assembly speaker elections on Sunday. The floor test has been scheduled for July 4. 

    BJP nominated and Shinde camp supported candidate Rahul Narvekar won the assembly speaker elections by 57 votes against Shiv Sena’s Rajan Salvi. 

    Out of 288 members of the House, Narvekar got a total of 167 votes including independent MLAs and smaller parties votes while Maha Vikas Aghadi’s joint candidate Rajan Salvi got 107 votes. In this voting, the Samajwadi Party and the MIM voters were absent. Besides, seven NCP MLAs including Nawab Malik and Anil Deshmukh were absent while two BJP MLAs and two Congress MLAs were absent. 

    Shiv Sena asked the acting speaker Narhari Zirwal to keep on record that 39 Shiv Sena MLAs who are with Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde cross-voted against the party whip. He said all voting of these cross-voted Shiv Sena MLAs are kept aside and video recorded. Shiv Sena MLA and chief whip Sunil Prabhu said that these 39 rebelled Sena MLAs violated the party’s whip and crossed voted to BJP’s candidate in speaker post-elections. He said that all these MLAs who cross-voted should be disqualified for anti-party activities. 

    “This is nothing but murder of democracy. MLAs are not listening to the party on which ticket they elected. This fit to disqualify them under anti-defection laws. We will approach the court against it,” Prabhu said. 

    After the speaker election, the Shinde camp also put on record in the state assembly that the 16 Shiv Sena MLAs crossed voted against the Shiv Sena whip. Deepak Kesarkar, the spokesperson of the Shinde camp, said chief whip Bharat Gogawale had asked all the Shiv Sena MLAs including Uddhav Thackeray and Sena MLAs to vote for the BJP’s candidate Milind Marvekar, but Thackeray group voted another Shiv Sena candidate Rajan Salvi. 

    The constitutional experts said both the camp of Shiv Sena has complained against each other over cross-voting against each other candidates. “Now, both parties asked disqualification of each other MLAs. The speaker will take this matter on hearing and give his verdict. After that only, they can approach to court against the speaker’s decisions,” they added. 

    Interestingly, while counting the numbers in the state assembly, many MLAs were not able to pronounce the right numbers which created a lot of confusion and laughter. Treasury benches hurled slogans hailing Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, while the opposition shouted ED when rebelled Shiv Sena MLAs counted the numbers. The head was counted to check which side how many MLAs there in speaker post-elections. After the voting, the Shinde camp and the BJP asked its MLAs to go back to the hotel Taj presidency in Mumbai. They will be again brought back on Monday for the floor test. 

    Narvekar got elected from the Colaba constituency in Mumbai. He is one of the youngest speakers of the state assembly. It is to be noted that his father-in-law Ram Raje Nimbalkar is NCP MLC and chairman of the state legislative council.

    Narvekar is a lawyer by profession. Earlier he was very close to Shiv Sena leader Aditya Thackeray, Narvekar later joined the NCP and was very close to NCP leader Ajit Pawar. He contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections on an NCP ticket from the Mawal constituency, later he became the NCP MLC. After which he joined the BJP and got elected in 2019 and is now elected as speaker of the state assembly. 

  • BJP MLA Nimaben Acharya set to become Gujarat Assembly’s first woman Speaker

    By PTI

    AHMEDABAD: Senior BJP MLA Nimaben Acharya is all set to become the first woman Speaker of the Gujarat Legislative Assembly as the opposition Congress has supported her nomination for the post.

    She is likely to be elected unopposed to the post when the Assembly meets for two days on September 27 and 28 for the monsoon session.

    The speaker’s post fell vacant after Rajendra Trivedi resigned on September 16 and joined the new state cabinet of Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel.

    Trivedi is now Revenue as well as Legislative and Parliamentary Affairs Minister in the BJP government.

    Ahead of the session, the Assembly secretariat had invited nominations for the election of new speaker and deputy speaker.

    On Friday, Trivedi along with the party’s chief whip Pankaj Desai presented the nomination papers of Acharya for the post of speaker and that of Jetha Bharwad for the post of deputy Speaker.

    “The Assembly secretary has checked and accepted the nomination papers of both Nimaben and Jetha Bharwad.

    Leader of Opposition Paresh Dhanani has also supported Nimaben’s nomination for the post,” Trivedi told repoters in Gandhinagar.

    However, although the Congress has agreed to support Acharya’s nomination, the party has decided to field their own candidate for the post of deputy Speaker citing the “past tradition” of the Assembly.

    “As per the tradition, the post of deputy speaker was always given to the opposition.

    When Congress was in power, we followed it and gave this post to the opposition.

    But the BJP never respected this tradition ever since it came to power in Gujarat,” Dhanani told reporters.

    “While we support Acharya for the post of speaker, we have decided to field our senior MLA Anil Joshiara, who is a tribal and a qualified doctor, for the post of deputy speaker,” the Congress leader added.

    Now, an election for the post of deputy speaker is imminent when the House meets on September 27.

    However, the numbers are not in favour of Congress.

    In the 182-member Assembly, Congress’ strength is just 65, while the BJP enjoys majority with 112 MLAs.

  • Only Parliament can frame law for timely disposal of disqualification petitions by Speaker: SC

    The top court was hearing a plea seeking directions to the Centre for framing of guidelines for Speakers for timely disposal of disqualification petitions.