Eknath Shinde’s job is at stake in tomorrow’s Supreme Court ruling: 10 points

1. The Supreme Court will decide whether Mr Shinde and 15 other MPs should be disqualified for their revolt against then-Prime Minister Uddhav Thackeray in June last year.

2. Mr Thackeray had asked the Supreme Court to intervene after Mr Shinde, backed by the opposition BJP, split the Shiv Sena and prompted most of the MLAs to form a new government.

3. If Mr. Shinde is disqualified, he will have to resign as Prime Minister of Maharashtra and his government will be dissolved.

4. Which side has more numbers – a volatile equation depending on whether MLAs from both sides switch sides – will then lay claim to a new government.

5. The decision depends on a five-person Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, which has pooled eight petitions for the duel.

6. Lead attorneys Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi represented Uddhav Thackeray’s team in court, while Harish Salve, Neeraj Kaul and Mahesh Jethmalani represented Eknath Shinde’s camp.

7. A day before the sentencing, Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule claimed that the ruling Shiv Sena-BJP alliance had 184 votes in the 288-strong assembly and could prove its majority if necessary.

8. Arvind Sawant, an MP for Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena, said: “This is a fight to save the constitution and democracy. The law is with us.”

9. Before hearings in the case ended in March, the court had asked Mr Singhvi to explain how Mr Thackeray’s government could be restored after he resigned as prime minister, rather than face a vote in parliament.

10. When deciding the dispute in February, the electoral commission assigned Mr Shinde the party name Shiv Sena and her bow-and-arrow symbol. Mr. Thackeray’s smaller faction was given the name Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray and the symbol of a flaming torch.

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