New Delhi: Former Maharashtra Chief Minister and UBT faction chief Uddhav Thackeray on Friday criticized the Election Commission for allotting the name ‘Shiv Sena’ and its election symbol ‘bow and arrow’ to another faction led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Uddhav Thackeray said, ‘The order of the Election Commission is the murder of democracy.’ He also resolved to challenge the Election Commission’s order in the Supreme Court.
The UBT leader said that “nothing has changed and traitors still remain traitors,” after losing the party’s name and symbol – the bow and arrow – to the Shinde faction. Uddhav Thackeray’s reaction came minutes after the Election Commission allotted the name ‘Shiv Sena’ and its election symbol to the group led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
In a unanimous order on a six-month-old petition filed by Shinde, the three-member commission allowed the Thackeray faction to retain the name Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and the ‘flaming torch’ election symbol, which it was given in a The interim order last year, till the conclusion of the ongoing assembly bypolls in the state.
Shinde described the EC’s decision as a “victory of truth and people as well as Balasaheb Thackeray’s blessings”, while Sanjay Raut, who is with Thackeray, said it was the commission’s decision to recognize the Shinde faction as the real Shiv Sena. The verdict was “murder of democracy” and that his party would “go to the people.”
This is the first time that the Thackeray family has lost control of the party founded by Balasaheb Thackeray in 1966 on the principles of justice for the sons of the soil.
Later, the party adopted Hindutva as its core ideology and partnered with the BJP until 2019, when Uddhav Thackeray broke the alliance to form a government with the help of the NCP and the Congress. Shinde had parted ways with Thackeray in June last year and formed the government in alliance with the BJP. “The name of the party ‘Shiv Sena’ and the symbol of the party ‘bow and arrow’ shall remain with the petitioner faction,” the commission said in the 78-page order.
It said that the name “Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena” and the symbol of “two swords and shield” allotted to the Shinde faction in October last year will now be frozen with immediate effect and will not be used.
The commission said it applied the principles of ‘test of party constitution’ and ‘test of majority’ while finalizing the order. The commission noted that the MLAs supporting Shinde got about 76 per cent votes in favor of the 55 winning candidates of the Shiv Sena in the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly elections.
It said that the MLAs of the Thackeray faction got 23.5 per cent votes in favor of the victorious Shiv Sena candidates.
The commission noted that the respondent (Thackeray faction) had heavily relied upon the 2018 constitution of the party to lay claim to the symbol and organisation, but the party had not informed the commission about the amendment in the constitution.
The order states, “The amended Constitution of 2018 is not on the record of the Commission.
The commission said, “To put it briefly, the constitution of the party envisages the President to nominate an electoral college, which is to choose them. This is against the spirit of democracy and negates the very purpose for which the entire exercise was done.”
It noted that the 2018 amendments “undo the task of introducing democratic norms” in the 1999 party constitution and quashed the Shiv Sena’s work brought in by Balasaheb Thackeray at the commission’s insistence.