Karad, Correspondent
Former Maharashtra chief minister and senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan on Wednesday launched a sharp attack on the legal strategy of the Uddhav Thackeray faction in the ongoing Shiv Sena symbol case, alleging that its lawyers squandered a golden opportunity in the Supreme Court four days ago.
Speaking to the media shortly after returning to Karad from Delhi, where he had been undergoing medical treatment for the past three months, Chavan said the Thackeray team presented the wrong argument during the hearing. The court promptly responded by saying it would hear their submissions only in January as there was no time now. At that very moment, the faction should have forcefully raised the point that local body elections in Maharashtra have not been held for the last ten years, Chavan insisted.
'The court's stand was clear: elections are the job of political parties and they must always be prepared; polls will take place anyway,' he recounted. 'But the Thackeray lawyers stayed silent and the hearing ended in a minute. That was a huge mistake.'
The veteran Congress leader argued that the faction missed telling the bench that the people of Maharashtra have been deprived of electing their corporators, sarpanchs and panchayat samiti members for a full decade — a direct assault on the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments. 'Every citizen has the right to fight two kinds of elections, one at the state and national level, and the other at the local self-government level. The second one has been snatched away for ten years because the BJP has trampled upon these amendments,' Chavan said.
He stressed that the Thackeray lawyers should have demanded an early verdict on the party symbol precisely because local body elections are long overdue. 'Even now it is not too late. They must raise this issue strongly in the January hearing,' he added.
Chavan's stinging remarks, made on his first public appearance after a three-month health-related absence, have triggered intense discussion across political circles in the state and cast fresh doubts on the legal approach adopted by the Uddhav Thackeray camp in the bitterly contested symbol dispute.
