Maharashtra Legislative Assembly was adjourned twice on Monday as ruling and opposition members disrupted proceedings of the House after Speaker Babasaheb Kupekar announced that he would give a ruling on separate petitions filed by leaders of two Shiv Sena `groups' only after studying the issue.
Expelled Sena Leader Narayan Rane said he had filed a petition with the speaker, seeking disqualification of 23 party MLAs for not attending a meeting convened by him on July 8 and urged the speaker to give a ruling.
Sena MLA Subhash Desai, belonging to the group supporting Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray, said the speaker should first give a ruling on his petition, claiming that of the 63 Sena MLAs, they enjoyed the support of 52, while Rane had the support of only 10.
Kupekar's decision to give a ruling later did not satisfy either side and they continued to make pleas for an immediate ruling.
However, when Rane was speaking, the Sena group supporting Uddhav tried to obstruct Rane's speech but ruling Congress-NCP members cheered him and when Desai was speaking, Congress-NCP MLAs obstructed his speech by shouting noisy slogans.
As one of the Sena MLAs made some gestures, Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil said, "the days of doing such dadagiri (bullying) are over". Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, who was thumping the desk, joined him.
Amidst noisy scenes, the Speaker adjourned the House for 15 minutes.
When the House reassembled, the din continued, prompting the speaker to adjourn the House again for half an hour.
Earlier, when the House assembled on the first day of the monsoon session, the Sena MLAs, supporting Uddhav, started raising slogans like jai bhawani, jai shivaji.
After this, Rane got up, demanding that the speaker give a ruling on the issue.
The speaker said he would study the issue and also take into consideration the `parade' of Sena MLAs (supporting Uddhav) which was held before him at Vidhan Bhawan recently.