Hearing concludes, verdict to be announced on Jan 10

The hearing of the disqualification petitions by the two factions of Shiv Sena concluded on Wednesday at Vidhan Bhavan, Nagpur, where the winter session of the Maharashtra legislature is going on, with the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) arguing that the other faction is in violation of the anti-defection law, and the Shiv Sena (as the Eknath Shinde faction is referred after the Election Commission decided to grant it both the name and the symbol of the party) arguing that the post Uddhav Thackeray occupied in the party was not even mentioned in its constitution.

- Faisal Malik

On the last day of the oral arguments, the Shiv Sena's counsel Mahesh Jethmalani argued that it does not attract disqualification as it stood by the Sena ideology and that Shinde did not walk out of the party to become the chief minister. In his counter argument, the Uddhav Thackeray faction counsel Devadatt Kamat said the Shinde faction should be disqualified as per schedule 10 of constitution as the defectors (Shinde and 39 MLAs) conspired with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to topple the Thackeray government.