Shiv Sena party name, symbol to be retained by Eknath Shinde faction: EC

The Election Commission of India ECI on Friday announced that the party name Shiv Sena and the symbol Bow and Arrow will be retained by the Eknath Shinde factionNotably 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 yearThe Commission observed that the current constitution of the Shiv Sena party is undemocratic It has been mutilated to undemocratically appoint people from a coterie as office bearers without any election at all Such party structures fail to inspire confidenceIn a landmark decision with farreaching implications on political parties and their conduct ECI advised all political parties to reflect democratic ethos and principles of inner party democracy and regularly disclose on their respective websites aspects of their inner party functioning such as organisational details holding of elections the copy of Constitution and list of office bearersThe constitution of political parties ought to provide for free fair and transparent elections to the posts of office bearers and a further free and fair procedure for the resolution of internal disputes These procedures ought to be difficult to amend and should be amendable only after ensuring larger support of the organisational members for the same the ECI saidThe Constitution of SS amended in 2018 is not given to ECI Amendments had undone the act of introducing democratic norms in the Party Constitution of 1999 brought by the Late Balasaheb Thackeray at the insistence of the Commission the ECI addedThe ECI observed that the undemocratic norms of the original Constitution of Shiv Sena which was not accepted by the Commission in 1999 have been brought back in a surreptitious manner further making the party akin to a fiefdomAlso Read Adani row JPC needed Modi govt hiding facts says Congress leader Pawan KheraThe Rashtriya Karyakarini is a body which is elected by a largely appointed Pratinidhi Sabha The Commission conveyed to Shiv Sena in the year 1999 on the draft amendments when Bala Saheb was made leader of Sena for life To put in a nutshell the party Constitution envisages the President nominating the Electoral College that is to elect him Therefore any reliance on the Test of Party Constitution for determining the present dispute case will be undemocratic and catalytic in spreading such practices across partiesThe ECI said that the 2018 Constitution of SS by way of its plain reading on the vital axis of remedymodality of dissent stifles all options of the rival groups in its very formulation It confers widespread powers of making various organisational appointments on a single personThe 40 MLAs supporting the Shinde faction garnered 3657327 votes out of a total of 4782440 votes ie 76 per cent of votes polled in favour of 55 winning MLAs in the GA to the LA 19 This contrasts with 1125113 votes garnered by 15 MLAs whose support is claimed by the Uddhav Thakre faction ie 235 per cent of votes polled in favour of winning 55 MLAs it saidFurther as against 9049789 total votes polled by Shiv Sena in the General election to the Legislative Assembly of Maharashtra in 2019 including the losing candidates votes polled by 40 MLAs supporting the Shinde faction come to 40 per cent whereas votes polled by 15 MLAs supporting the Uddhav Thakre faction come to 12 per cent of total votes the Commission saidThe 13 MPs supporting the Shinde faction garnered 7488634 votes out of a total of 10245143 votes ie 73 per cent of votes polled in favour of 18 MPs in the general election to the Lok Sabha 2019 This contrasts with 2756509 votes garnered by 5 MPs supporting Uddhav Thakre faction although claimed 6 and affidavits filed by only 4 ie 27 per cent of votes polled in favour of 18 MPs the Commission further statedFurther as against 12589064 the total votes polled by Shiv Sena in the Lok Sabha election 2019 including the losing candidates votes polled by 13 MPs supporting the Shinde faction come to 59 per cent whereas votes polled by 5 MPs claimed 6 whereas affidavits of only 4 supporting the Uddhav Thakre faction comes to 22 per cent the Commission addedLast month both the Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and former CM Uddhav Thackerayled factions of the Shiv Sena submitted their written statements in support of their claims of control over the party name and symbol to the Election CommissionThe ECI had frozen the bow and arrow symbol of the Shiv Sena and had allotted the Two Swords and Shield symbol to the Eknath Shinde faction of Shiv Sena and the flaming torch mashaal election symbol was allotted to the Uddhav Thackeray faction for the bypoll in Andheri East assembly constituency in November last yearIn November last year Uddhav Thackeray had moved a writ plea in the Delhi High Court against the ECI decision to freeze Election Symbol of Bow and Arrow However the plea was dismissed by the courtNotably EC passed the interim order saying in Andheri East bypolls neither of the two groups shall be permitted to use the symbol Bow and Arrow reserved for Shiv SenaThe Commissions ruling had come amid the ongoing symbol war between the Uddhav Thackeray camp and rival Eknath Shinde campThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever