A SHIV SENA IN THE MIRROR

In what came as a formal setback for the Uddhav Thackeray-led faction of the Shiv Sena, Maharashtra assembly speaker Rahul Narwekar held that the camp led by Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde was the "real Shiv Sena".

- Dhaval Kulkarni

However, Narwekar did not disqualify legislators from either of the two rival factions. In June 2022, Shinde, who was a minister in the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition led by Thackeray, walked out with 39 MLAs, leading to the fall of that government. Shinde took over as CM in an alliance with the BJP. The two Sena groups had filed 24 petitions before the Speaker in 2022, each seeking disqualification of the other. In December 2023, the Supreme Court had asked Narwekar to decide on the petitions by January 10, 2024.