Mumbai: “The Constitution of India gives every citizen the full right to practice and propagate his religion, but the government has become a tradition of ‘saying one thing and doing another’. The ‘Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Bill 2026’ is ostensibly named ‘religious freedom’, but its real purpose is to impose strict restrictions on religion and suppress minorities. When the language of the law becomes ambiguous, it becomes a cause of concern rather than protection, and this ambiguity damages the social fabric and mutual tolerance.” These views were expressed by Justice Abhay Thapsay, a former judge of the Bombay High Court, while addressing an important seminar organized by ‘United Against Injustices and Discrimination’ (UAID) and ‘Association for Protection of Civil Rights’ (APCR) at the Mayor’s Hall in Andheri West. More than 250 intellectuals, lawyers and social workers from different schools of thought participated in the seminar.

Addressing the seminar, renowned lawyer Advocate Lara Jessani shed detailed light on the provisions of the bill and said that hate crime is being systematically promoted in the country. The provisions of this law are so vague that under the guise of ‘allurement’, an attempt is being made to criminalize education, marriage, charity, employment and especially the relief activities of minority schools. She said that under the law, conversion of religion in the name of marriage or by luring has been proposed with a sentence of up to 10 years and a fine of Rs 5 lakh. Moreover, any third party or the police can register an FIR at their own will, and the most dangerous aspect is that the onus of proving innocence has been placed on the accused, which is a serious constitutional conspiracy to keep citizens in jails for years without being proven guilty.

Dolphy D’Souza of Police Reforms Watch revealed that the draft of this sensitive bill was prepared in secret within just 72 hours, without any public consultation, hence the majority and the minority should all come together to raise their voice against this ‘divide and rule’ politics.

Dr. Salim Khan, member of the Central Advisory Council of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, said that faith and trust are a matter of the heart which cannot be changed through laws. He strongly criticized the anti-people and undemocratic policies of the government, citing Maulana Umar Gautam and Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui, and termed it a manifestation of political failure.

Earlier, APCR Maharashtra General Secretary Shakir Sheikh, while directing the program, referred to the country’s situation, bulldozer operations, mob lynching and UCC and said that this draft is also a link in this chain. Renowned intellectual Irfan Engineer clarified that this law is not only anti-Muslim or anti-Christian, but also an ‘anti-Hindu’ law suppressing the backward classes, which has been brought to end secularism. At the end of the seminar, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Mumbai PR Secretary Syed Sharif Yunus expressed his gratitude to all the guests and participants.

Mumbai, June 17: The Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray (UBT) on Wednesday said that politics has become completely unpredictable, and it is impossible to tell when someone’s fortunes might suddenly soar.

Citing the case of West Bengal, the party said this phenomenon has reached “a point of absolute absurdity”. An obscure, hollow outfit called the ‘Nationalist Citizens Party of India’ (NCPI) has hit the political lottery, suddenly gaining 22 ‘ready-made’ Members of Parliament (MPs).

The Shiv Sena(UBT) in an editorial in its mouthpiece, ‘Saamana’, stated that established regional political forces like the Shiv Sena or Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have never managed to secure such a high number of MPs at one time. Numerous political parties have spent their entire existence struggling to elect even a single MLA or MP. What prominent leaders like Adv Prakash Ambedkar, Ramdas Athawale, and Arvind Kejriwal could not achieve, this Tripura-registered NCPI managed overnight.

According to the editorial, this “miracle” of Indian democracy was made possible entirely due to the “strategic manoeuvres of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar”.

“Though the party originates from Tripura — a state that only sends two members to the Lok Sabha — this Tripura-based party will now command 22 seats in the Lok Sabha, operating strictly as ‘yes-men’ to PM Modi. It perfectly exemplifies the proverb, ‘When the Almighty gives, He breaks through the roof’ — showering unasked bounty upon them,” the editorial said.

Ironically, the NCPI chief, Uttiya Kundu, was completely unaware that his party had suddenly won a “lottery” of 20 to 22 ready-made MPs. This sudden “money laundering of MPs” into his party left him completely bewildered, panicked, and confused, remarked the editorial.

“The defecting MPs have no reason to fear Kundu. Cowardly, selfish, and compromised MPs from the Trinamool Congress (TMC) simply engineered a mass merger into Kundu’s alleyway-registered party to secure personal safety,” claimed the Thackeray camp.

“This marks a dark chapter in the history of Indian politics. The absolute vow taken in Kolkata by BJP to ensure the Trinamool Congress would not even survive for medicinal purposes after the elections has been practically realised. It has exposed that Mamata Banerjee’s party was filled with fugitives and compromised individuals whose grand rhetoric regarding Bengali identity (‘Maa, Mati, Manush’) was entirely hollow. They held no genuine love for Mamata Banerjee or the pride of Bengal; at the first taste of defeat, they collapsed like a house of cards and scattered like dry leaves,” said the editorial.

According to the Thackeray camp, this political script is not unique to Bengal, and the “ruling dispensation in Delhi has deployed the exact same strategy across other proud, self-respecting states. Currently, in the political market, it is the defectors and traitors who command the highest value”.

“In Maharashtra, where veteran leaders like Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray saw the very people they nurtured and appointed as ministers turn traitor first. In Punjab, where the ruling party’s MPs were similarly poached and fractured. In West Bengal, where an entire block of MPs collapsed like a house of cards,” it said.

Mumbai, June 17: In a pre-emptive move against a brewing political rebellion, the Shiv Sena(UBT) leader in the Lok Sabha, Arvind Sawant, in a petition before the Speaker, Om Birla, has sought his intervention to block any attempts by disgruntled lawmakers to orchestrate a fresh split or merger in the Lower House of Parliament.

The extensive four-page letter, dated June 16, was written amid swirling media reports about “Operation Tiger”. The media report suggested that up to seven of the party’s nine Lok Sabha MPs are contemplating breaking away to align with the rival Eknath Shinde-led faction or other political forces.

Sawant has explicitly flagged these backroom manoeuvres. “There are reports appearing in the media that certain Members of Parliament elected on the symbol of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) have either approached, or are contemplating approaching, your office seeking recognition as a separate group or a merger with another political party within the Lok Sabha,” he said.

Sawant emphasised that the parliamentary wing owes its existence entirely to the parent organisational party and that the constitutional framework does not permit “multiple competing formations” to represent the same political party inside the House.

A core segment of Sawant’s petition relied heavily on constitutional law and judicial precedent to dismantle the strategy often used by defecting factions.

Sawant said there is no Constitutional protection for a ‘Split’, and that following the deletion of Paragraph 3 of the Tenth Schedule via the Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act, 2003, the law no longer recognises splinter groups within a legislature as a defence against disqualification.

Citing the Landmark Supreme Court judgment in ‘Subhash Desai vs. Principal Secretary, Governor of Maharashtra & Ors.’ (2023), he has argued that the power to appoint a whip, leader, or issue binding directives flows exclusively from the parent political party, not the legislative group.

Addressing rumours that numerical strength (the two-thirds mark) is enough to break away, Sawant clarified that Paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule requires two distinct conditions to be satisfied conjunctively: first, a merger of the original political party itself, and second, the support of at least two-thirds of the legislative members. “Without an actual merger of the organisational Shiv Sena(UBT), any standalone action by the MPs would constitute a voluntary relinquishment of membership, triggering immediate disqualification under Paragraph 2 of the Anti-Defection Law,” he remarked.

Sawant has requested the Lok Sabha Speaker to take the formal representation strictly on record, refuse any separate recognition, status, privilege, or facility to any purported breakaway faction and ensure no decision is taken on any rogue request without first granting the principal Shiv Sena(UBT) leadership a fair opportunity to present its case.

The submission of this letter comes at a highly volatile moment. Rumours have intensified as multiple UBT MPs reportedly arrived in New Delhi simultaneously with Deputy Chief Minister and Shiv Sena chief Eknath Shinde.

Compounding the anxiety within the Uddhav camp, senior MP Sanjay Raut recently launched a scathing attack on the ruling dispensation, alleging that opposition lawmakers were being offered astronomical sums of up to Rs 15 crore each to defect.

While the Shinde faction has publicly dismissed accusations of engineering defections, the appearance of Sawant’s comprehensive legal letter signals that the Thackeray loyalists are bracing for a bruising constitutional battle to protect their presence in Parliament.