Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Thursday dismissed a petition filed by a former corporator and functionary of the Shiv Sena (UBT), Sunil Modi against the withdrawal of a list of 12 MLC nominees sent to the governor in 2020 by the then MVA government.
“The PIL petition is misconceived and liable to be dismissed. Hence the PIL is dismissed,” a bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar said. The HC had reserved the order in Modi’s plea in October last year.
Modi had challenged the decision of the Eknath Shine led government to withdraw the recommendations made by erstwhile Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) led by Uddhav Thackeray for the 12 nominated seats.
After the government changed in 2022 and Eknath Sinde took over as the State Chief Minister, the new cabinet reportedly wrote to the Governor that they were withdrawing the pending list of 12 names submitted by the earlier government. On September 5, 2022, the Governor accepted the same and the list was returned to the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO).
Subsequently, the cabinet sent a fresh list of seven MLCs for the 12 vacant posts under the Governor’s quota, which was approved by the Governor.
The MLCs were sworn-in in October 2024, just hours before the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) for the Maharashtra Assembly elections kicked in. of these, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has got three, and the Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have got two MLCs each.
The newly appointed MLCs from the BJP are its state women’s wing chief Chitra Wagh, state general secretary Vikrant Patil, and spiritual leader of Banjara community Dharmaguru Babusingh Maharaj Rathod. The NCP has nominated former MLA Pankaj Bhujbal and Idris Naikwadi – a minority face from Western Maharashtra. The Shiv Sena has nominated former MLC Manisha Kayande and former Lok Sabha MP Hemant Patil.
