Dy. Speaker: Will verify with signatories of Shinde’s letter

Maharashtra Assembly deputy Speaker Narahari Zirwal on Thursday said that he will verify with each and every MLA backing Eknath Shinde to find out if they lent their support under any pressure. Zirwal said that he has not started the process yet and has not set any timeline for it either. The deputy Speaker’s move is being seen as an attempt to buy more time for the MVA to try and save the government.

The rebellion Shinde Sena faction had sent a resolution signed by 34 MLAS to the deputy

Speaker and the state legislature secretary stating that Shinde was reappointed as group leader of the Sena legislature party.

The deputy Speaker said that he had received a letter which has the signatures of 34 MLAS but doubted its veracity. He asserted that he needed to check the authenticity of the letter. “One of the MLAS, Nitin Deshmukh, has said that he never signed the said document. He has clarified that his signature is in Roman script while his purported signature on the said letter is in Devanagri. There could be more such cases of forged signatures. So, I need to check with each of the signatories the authenticity of their signatures,” Zirwal said.

After Shinde’s rebellion, the Shiv Sena has informed Zirwal that he has been removed from the post of the legislative party chief and that another MLA Ajay Chaudhari has replaced him. However, Shinde and supporters claimed that Chaudhari’s appointment is illegal and Shinde is still the leader.

Zirwal said that as per the rule, party chief appoints the legislative party leader and subsequently the legislative party leader appoints chief whip. Therefore, CM Thackeray first appointed Shinde and now he has appointed Chaudhary as the legislative party leader.