Uddhav Thackeray arrived at Shiv Sena Bhavan in Mumbai on Monday amid sloganeering and cheers by his supporters. He has called a meeting with the MLAs and leaders of his faction in Mumbai today. Dozens of faction workers raised slogans outside Shiv Sena Bhavan where MLAs and leaders of the faction arrived for a meeting in wake of EC allotting the “Shiv Sena” name & “Bow & Arrow” symbol to Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde faction. They also raised slogans against EC.
On Monday, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena mentioned its plea before the Supreme Court seeking an urgent hearing on a petition challenging the election Commission’s order.
Last week, the Election Commission of India (ECI), allotted the name ‘Shiv Sena’ and its poll symbol ‘bow and arrow’ to the group led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
The apex court asked the advocate of Uddhav’s faction to mention the issue on Tuesday. A bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud observed that the plea seeking an urgent hearing on the petition was not mentioned in the list. The Supreme Court said that the plea seeking an urgent hearing should have been on the mentioned list.
Sanjay Raut, the former cabinet minister in the Maharashtra government and a close aide of Thackeray has alleged that a ₹2,000 crore was made by which the Shinde faction got the party name and symbol. “At an appropriate time we will come out with proof in this regard,” he added.
Meanwhile, the chief whip of Shiv Sena ( Shinde faction) Bharat Gogawale with other MLAs reached Vidhan Bhavan on Monday and gave notice to the Speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly Rahul Narvekar asking for the handover of the Shiv Sena legislative party office at Vidhan Bhavan. Gogawale said that the office at Vidhan Bhavan belonged to the Shinde faction after the ECI order.
The Uddhav Thackeray faction accused the Election Commission of haste. Thackeray added that EC’s decision shows “it works as BJP agent”.
Notably, both factions of Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde and Uddhav Thackeray) have been fighting for the bow and arrow symbol of the party since Shinde (present Maharashtra Chief Minister) revolted against Thackeray last year.
Later Shinde became the Chief Minister of Maharashtra after joining hands with the Bharatiya Janta party (BJP) and broke the alliance with Congress and National Congress Party (NCP). Since then tussle between the Shinde faction and the Thackeray faction has continued to get bitter.
Originally, Shiv Sena was founded by Uddhav Thackeray’s father Bal Thackeray on June 19, 1966. The party has had a far-right political position since its inception.
In 2005, Shiv Sena suffered a major setback after Bal Thackeray’s nephew Raj Thackeray broke away from the party and created MNS-Maharashtra Navnirman Sena-another political faction. However, the latest order by ECI is a bigger jolt as the scion of Bal Thackeray has lost his father’s party name and symbol to an outsider.
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