Shinde's lawyer asks SC, "What's wrong with internal party democracy?"

|HT|

As the Supreme Court on Wednesday began to hear the cases on the rift of the Shiv Sena, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Uddhav camp, said there must be a merger if a rebel camp wants protection against disqualification. "Until the SC decides all the points of law, nothing should be done. Let this court also decide on the disqualification petitions," Sibal said. Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi also appeared for the Uddhav Thackeray faction and argued that the floor test should have been stalled by the Supreme court. "Tenth Schedule has been made nugatory," he added.

Senior advocate Harish Salve appeated for chief minister Eknath Shinde and said, "What's wrong with internal party democracy? What's wrong with questioning the leader of your party by not defecting to some other party but gather enough support within the party. That's not defection."

The hearing comes a day after Shiv Sena got a new leader in the Lok Sabha from the Eknath Shinde camp - Rahul Shewale. A total of 12 Lok Sabha MPs, including chief minister Eknath Shinde's son Shrikant Eknath Shinde, joined the Eknath Shinde camp and claimed that Uddhav had been trying to realign his ties with the BJP.

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