New Delhi: Making his first public reaction after the Supreme Court’s verdict in last year’s Shiv Sena-centric political crisis in Maharashtra, former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday said that his successor Eknath Shinde should resign as he did. His reaction came shortly after the SC held that the then Maharashtra governor — Bhagat Singh Koshyari — was not justified in calling upon Uddhav Thackeray to prove a majority in the Assembly on June 30 last year. The top court, however, said that it cannot restore the then Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by Uddhav as he resigned without facing the floor test.
“Eknath Shinde won after murdering democracy. He should resign as Chief Minister like I did,” Uddhav Thackeray told a press conference after the SC verdict.
He also said that his resignation as the CM in June last year may have been legally ‘wrong’ but he did it on ‘moral grounds’.
“They (now Shinde faction MLAs) betrayed my party and the legacy of my father (Bal Thackeray),” Uddhav said.
In a unanimous verdict on a batch of pleas related to the political crisis that led to the fall of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by Thackeray following a revolt by the Eknath Shinde faction, a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud held that House speaker’s decision to appoint Bharat Gogawale of the Shinde faction as the whip of Shiv Sena was ‘illegal’.
It, however, said since Thackeray had resigned without facing the floor test, the governor was justified in inviting Shinde to form government at the behest of the BJP which was the largest political party in the house.
(This is a breaking news. More details are being added)
