Mumbai: As reports of six Shiv Sena (UBT) MPs forming a separate group intensified, the party attempted a pushback through legal means once again, similar to its strategy in 2022 when Eknath Shinde led a majority of MLAs away. The party issued a whip requiring all nine of its Lok Sabha MPs to attend a parliamentary party meeting at 11 am in New Delhi on Thursday. Additionally, Sena (UBT) MP Arvind Sawant submitted a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, urging him not to entertain any claim to form a separate group or merge with another political party by the defecting MPs.
This move was also seen as an admission that at least some of the party's MPs were indeed planning to leave. The whip, citing an "important meeting of the Parliamentary Party regarding various issues of the party," was issued by MP Anil Desai, the UBT Sena's chief whip in the Lok Sabha. The UBT Sena aims to ensure that at least four Lok Sabha MPs attend the meeting to prevent the Shinde Sena from reaching the two-thirds majority required to form a separate group.
Sawant and Desai later consulted lawyers, including Kapil Sibal, to discuss legal options, according to Sena (UBT) functionaries. In his letter to the Speaker, Sawant, leader of the UBT Sena parliamentary party, noted that the claim that Sena (UBT) represents the 'real Shiv Sena' is sub-judice in the Supreme Court, and the letter was written without prejudice to that claim.
The letter stated, "I may also respectfully invite attention to the Directions by the Speaker, Lok Sabha, including Direction 121 and the allied provisions governing recognition of parties and groups in the House. These Directions contemplate recognition being accorded through the authorised leadership of a political party and prescribe minimum numerical thresholds for recognition. They do not provide any mechanism for recognition of a faction operating in opposition to the leadership and authority of the political party… from which such members claim to derive their mandate. The reported request [on the part of the breakaway MPs to form a group] therefore finds no support in the Directions governing parliamentary procedure either."
Sawant emphasized that Sena (UBT) must continue to be recognized as a single political party, represented in the House through its duly authorized leader and whip, and that no separate recognition, status, privilege, or facility should be granted to any purported faction or breakaway group claiming to represent the party. "No decision be taken on any such request, if received, without first affording the Sena (UBT) an opportunity to place its submissions before your office. The party further reserves all rights available to it in law, including the right to invoke the provisions of the Tenth Schedule and pursue such remedies as may be necessary in relation to any conduct inconsistent with the constitutional principles referred to," the letter concluded.
