A day before Maharashtra Speaker Rahul Narwekar will decide on disqualification pleas, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday said that his party will fight in the court of public opinion.

The comments came as Thackeray expressed concern about Narwekar meeting Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday ahead of the key decision on the pleas.

On December 15, the Supreme Court had directed Narwekar to decide on the petitions by January 10 as it extended the deadline.

Thirty-four petitions seeking the disqualification of MLAs are pending with the Speaker. Of them, 20 are against MLAs from the Shiv Sena group led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, while 14 are against MLAs from the faction led by former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.

On May 11, a five-judge bench had directed the Maharashtra Speaker to hear and decide the disqualification petitions within a “reasonable time”. On several occasions since it first passed the direction, the Supreme Court had urged Narwekar to decide on the disqualification pleas.

The Shiv Sena had split in June 2022 after Shinde and 39 MLAs backing him rebelled against the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition. The Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress were allies in the government.

At a press conference on Tuesday, the former chief minister said that Narwekar’s meeting with Shinde on Monday was akin to a “judge meeting a criminal”.

“What justice can we expect from him tomorrow,” Thackeray told reporters on Tuesday. “People can imagine the sort of justice that will be dispensed tomorrow. We will fight in the court of public opinion.”