As Fadnavis hails SC verdict, Uddhav's Sena retorts: ‘scraped bottom of immorality’

The Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) on Thursday hit out at Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis for hailing the Supreme Court's verdict that allowed Eknath Shinde to continue as chief minister, saying the BJP leader “has scraped the bottom” of immorality. Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Priyanka Chaturvedi said the Supreme Court has given the Shinde-Fadnavis government the stamp of “illegal and unconstitutional.”

Addressing a press conference after the top court's verdict on a batch of petitions related to the political crisis that led to the fall of the three-party Maha Vikas Aghadi government, Fadnavis on Thursday said he was satisfied by the judgment refusing to reinstate the MVA government led by Uddhav Thackeray. Calling the verdict a “victory of democracy and the democratic process”, Fadnavis asserted that the five-judge bench held the Shiv Sena-BJP government legal and constitutional.

“Today, Maha Vikas Aghadi's (MVA) conspiracy has been defeated. Now, no one should doubt that the Maharashtra government is completely legal,” said Fadnavis.

Reacting to Fadnavis's statement, Chaturvedi tweeted: “His credibility falls every single day: from plotting this unconstitutionality to being forced to be a deputy to an illegal CM then the fashion designer story and now saying democracy has won.”

“Immorality ke bhi limits hote hain (There are limits even to immorality), he has scraped that bottom too. Illegal and Unconstitutional is the stamp SC has given you’ll (sic),” she added.

In a unanimous verdict, a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud held that the then Speaker's decision to appoint Bharat Gogawale of the Shinde faction as the whip of the Shiv Sena in the Maharashtra Assembly was "contrary to law". The court also pulled up former Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and said he did not have reasons based on objective material before him to arrive at the conclusion that then chief minister Thackeray had lost the confidence of the House.

Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray said that Shinde and Fadnavis should resign on moral grounds like he did last year.