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Journalism of Courage
Shiv Sena MP Rahul Shewale of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s camp was cross-examined on Friday during a hearing in Nagpur on a petition that sought the disqualification of party MLAs. The hearing was held on the sidelines of the state legislature’s winter session.
During the cross examination by a lawyer of Sena (UBT), Shewale said that Shinde was appointed the party’s chief leader after the Shiv Sena’s constitution was amended post a national executive meeting of the party in July last year.
Shewale said that Sena (UBT) president would never meet any of the party leaders despite multiple requests. “Eknath Shinde was appointed as chief leader after the party constitution was amended in its national executive meeting. This was only after amending the constitution. I don’t want to comment further as the cross examination is currently underway and this may cause some technical problems,” Shewale said after the cross examination. His cross examination will now continue on Tuesday.
Minister Deepak Kesarkar will be cross examined by Sena (UBT) on Monday.
Sena (UBT) MLA Sunil Prabhu said Shewale lied and the more he lies, the more it will help the Sena (UBT) in the hearing. “The Shinde led Sena will get into trouble because of their lies. In 1999, the Shiv Sena constitution had no provision for chief leader and this is the constitution that they are referring to. The truth will win,” Prabhu said.
Meanwhile, state assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar – who is holding the disqualification hearing – asked the lawyers from both Sena factions to wrap up the cross examination by next Tuesday to ensure that the adjudication of disqualification would be completed before December 31, a date set by the Supreme court.
“The cross examination will be over by Tuesday and the arguments will begin on December 18 and this will be over by Dec 22-23,” The Eknath Shinde faction’s lawyer Anil Sakhare said.
Earlier on Friday, Shiv Sena (UBT) produced an attendance sheet of a meeting of Sena MLAs held on June 21, 2022 at Varsha Bungalow of then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray which shows that 23 Sena MLAs had attended the meeting and approved the proposal to remove Eknath Shinde as the group leader of the undivided Sena’s legislators in the state assembly.
Later out of these 23, eight joined the Shinde faction and only 14 remained with the Uddhav faction.
Eventually 40 MLAs left Uddhav and joined the Shinde faction and only 15 MLAs were left with Uddhav in July 2022.
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