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Informist, Tuesday, Jul. 21, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla's decision to approve the merger of six Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray or UBT) members of Parliament into the Shiv Sena led by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. The petition has been filed by Arvind Ganpat Sawant, a member of the Shiv Sena (UBT) party, challenging the speaker's order.

 

Seeking an urgent listing of the plea, Sawant said, "My functioning as a political party in the Parliament has come to absolute standstill. These MPs are not with me. The speaker has recognised their merger with another party and it is for this Parliament session." However, the bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said it couldn't promise a listing of the case on Wednesday or Friday, but would surely list it. 

 

On Saturday, the Lok Sabha Secretariat published a circular with the Shiv Sena's revised position in the Lok Sabha. The Shiv Sena with floor leader Shrikant Eknath Shinde has 13 members of Parliament, the circular said, meaning the Lok Sabha Speaker had approved the merger of six Shiv Sena (UBT) MPs with the Shiv Sena led by Shinde. The Shiv Sena (UBT) will now have only three members of Parliament in the Lok Sabha.

 

Last month, Shinde had declared that six rebel members of Parliament from the rival Shiv Sena (UBT) group joined the Shinde-led faction in a ceremony at the Y.B. Chavan Centre in Mumbai. The lawmakers who joined Shinde's party are Sanjay Haribhau Jadhav, Bhausaheb Rajaram Wakchaure, Omprakash Bhupalsingh Nimbalkar, Sanjay Dina Patil, Sanjay Uttamrao Deshmukh, and Nagesh Bapurao Patil Ashtikar. 

 

Shinde said that after the 2022 rebellion of the then united Shiv Sena's legislators, this was the "second phase" to "protect Hindutva ideals". He said his faction was the "real" Shiv Sena as it works on the ideology of the late Bal Thackeray and the late Anand Dighe. Dighe, the Shiv Sena strongman in Thane, was Shinde's political mentor. 

 

In the 2022 split led by Shinde, 40 of the Shiv Sena's 56 legislators had broken away, allegedly under pressure from central investigative agencies. The split led to the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra. The breakaway group formed a new government with the Bharatiya Janata Party, with Shinde as chief minister.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Avishek Dutta 

 

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