SC ruling reinstates trust in democracy: Uddhav Thackeray

Mumbai: Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday said the Supreme Court’s ruling on the political crisis that led to the fall of the three-party MVA government led by him following a revolt by the Eknath Shinde faction reinstates trust in democracy.

The court has pulled up then Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and said he did not have reasons based on objective material before him to reach the conclusion that then chief minister Thackeray had lost the confidence of the House.

In a unanimous verdict on a batch of pleas related to the political crisis, a five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud held that the Speaker's decision to appoint Bharat Gogawale of the Shinde faction as the whip of Shiv Sena was “illegal”.

"They (Shinde faction MLAs) betrayed my party and the legacy of my father. My resignation as the CM then may have been wrong legally, but I did it on moral grounds,” Uddhav Thackeray told reporters at his Matoshree bungalow in suburban Bandra.

“How was I supposed to run a government with backstabbers,” he said.

“If the current Maharashtra CM (Shinde) and deputy CM (Devendra Fadnavis) have any ethics, then they should resign after the SC ruling,” he said.

The SC ruled that Uddhav Thackeray government in Maharashtra can't be restored as he had resigned as CM on his own last year amid a huge drama that resulted in a vertical split in Shiv Sena.

Thackeray said that after the SC ruling holding as illegal the Speaker's decision to appoint Bharat Gogawale of the Shinde faction as the whip of Shiv Sena, Speaker Rahul Narvekar has to take into consideration Sunil Prabhu as the whip of his Shiv Sena while deciding on disqualification of 16 rebel MLAs.