Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Sunday criticised former Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, accusing him of removing the fear of the law from politicians who defected from parties in Maharashtra.
Raut claimed that Chandrachud’s failure to rule on disqualification petitions allowed defections to take place unchecked. He alleged that by not addressing these petitions, the former CJI kept the doors open for such political shifts.
The comments came after Raut’s party suffered a significant defeat in the state assembly elections, securing only 20 of the 95 seats it contested as part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance. The Congress won just 16 of 101 seats, while the NCP (SP) managed only 10 of 86.
Speaking to reporters, Raut said, “He (Chandrachud) has removed the fear of the law from defectors. His name will be written in black letters in history.”
Following the split of the undivided Shiv Sena in 2022, Uddhav Thackeray’s faction filed petitions with the Supreme Court challenging the disqualification of MLAs who defected to Eknath Shinde’s camp. The court passed the matter to the assembly Speaker, who later ruled that Shinde’s faction was the “real political party.”
Raut also suggested that the election results were pre-determined, adding that if the disqualification petitions had been resolved earlier, the outcome might have been different.
“We are sad but not disappointed. We will not leave the fight incomplete,” Raut said. He cited vote division and the role of the RSS as factors in the election results, also accusing a “poisonous campaign” of negatively impacting his party.
In his weekly column in the party’s mouthpiece, Saamana, Raut further criticised the Election Commission, claiming it ignored the use of money power in the election. He also noted that the courts had been “in the ICU for a long time.”
(With PTI inputs)
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