New Delhi: The Supreme Court Wednesday refused to stay the Election Commission’s order that granted the “Shiv Sena” name and original “bow and arrow” symbol to the party’s Eknath Shinde group.
The apex court also said the Uddhav Thackeray group would continue to be known as “Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray)”, and use the new “flaming torch” symbol for all upcoming by-elections.
The top court issued a notice to the Eknath Shinde camp and asked it to reply to Uddhav Thackeray’s plea that challenged the poll body’s decision.
The matter was heard Wednesday by a three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, and Justices P.S. Narasimha and J.B. Pardiwala. They have listed it again for hearing in two weeks.
Uddhav Thackeray moved the Supreme Court Monday against the Election Commission’s decision to grant the Sena name and original symbol to the rebel faction, led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
The poll body said it decided to recognise the Eknath Shinde camp as the real “Shiv Sena” based on its numbers in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. The Shinde camp has 40 MLAs to Udhhav’s 15.
In the Lok Sabha too, 13 members of the 18 MPs supported Eknath Shinde, while five were loyal to Uddhav Thackeray.
The two had been locked in a prestige fight for the name and symbol ever since Shinde broke the Sena-led previous government last year, and formed the present one with the support from the BJP.
His grouse against his former boss was that Thackeray compromised the right-wing Sena’s ideals while teaming up with secular parties — the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party – to form the state government in 2019.
Uddhav Thackeray, whose father Balasaheb founded the Shiv Sena in 1966, was chief minister of that coalition.
Thackeray’s plea before the top court said the Election Commission had “failed” to consider that his faction enjoyed a majority in the Legislative Council and the Rajya Sabha.
He told the media in Mumbai this week that everything had been stolen from him, but the “Thackeray” name was still his.
He challenged the Shinde faction to drop his father’s name and “win elections under the names of his father”.
Thackeray also said the election panel should be dissolved while the matter was in the Supreme Court.
“The Election Commission only has control over the symbol of parties… EC panel should be dissolved, the matter is going on in the Supreme Court,” he said.
He alleged that if the current scenario in the state was not stopped, then anarchy would prevail after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Meanwhile, Thackeray loyalist Sanjay Raut has alleged that “Rs 2,000 crore transactions were done to get the Shiv Sena symbol and name”.
“We’ve approached Supreme Court against the EC. I stand by my statement that there was a deal of Rs 2,000 crore by which the Shinde faction got the party name and symbol,” he said.
Also read: Made ‘democratic’ in 1999, amended in 2018, the Shiv Sena constitution EC has slammed