Newly appointed Sena chief whip petitions speaker to suspend 16 MLAs supporting Uddhav

Ahead of the floor test in Maharashtra assembly, Bharat Gogawale, the newly appointed chief whip of Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction), gave a petition to the assembly speaker for the suspension of 16 MLAs of the party for violation of whip. 

The 16 MLAs will be issued notice for suspension, confirmed Speaker Narwekar's office.

A letter issued by the office of the speaker had reinstated Chief Minister Shinde as the Shiv Sena's legislative party leader, while also recognising the appointment of Bharat Gogawale from the Shinde camp as the chief whip of the Sena, removing Sunil Prabhu, who belongs to the Thackeray faction.

This is a big setback for the Uddhav camp of the Shiv Sena. Prabhu could have issued a whip to the rebel MLAs to vote for the Sena-Congress-NCP combine candidate, but that is not the case now.

The 16 MLAs who support Uddhav could face disqualification proceedings if they don't vote for Eknath Shinde in the floor test.

Shinde was sworn in as the chief minister of Maharashtra on Thursday following the collapse of the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government, while senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis took oath as Shinde's deputy.

Around 40 Sena MLAs led by Shinde rebelled against the party leadership, which eventually resulted in the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government on Wednesday.