Sena vs Sena to play out in Supreme Court today

The Maharashtra political tussle will see a chapter of it playing on Wednesday when the Supreme Court hears the plea by the Uddhav Thackeray faction challenging the Election Commission order recognising the Eknath Shinde’s camp as the real Shiv Sena and allotting him the party’s name and the “bow and arrow” symbol.

A bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justices Krishna Murari, and PS Narasimha will hear the plea at 3.30 PM on Wednesday.

“If the EC order does not stay, they will take over the symbol and bank accounts. Please list it before the Constitution bench,” Sibal submitted. The top court had said it needs to go through the case files and posted the matter for hearing at 3:30 pm on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, It was decided that Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will remain the “chief leader” of the Shiv Sena at the party’s first national executive meeting after the split.

Other resolutions included the demand for a posthumous Bharat Ratna for freedom fighters and Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.

Another resolution passed at the meeting demanded the inclusion of Sambhaji Maharaj, Veermata Jijabai and Ahilyabai Holkar in the list of “national personalities”.

Interestingly, Shinde had said on Monday that no claim will be laid on any party property post the Election Commission’s decision on the real Shiv Sena as “we are heirs of Balasaheb Thackeray’s ideology and have no temptations”.

“Those who were tempted by property and wealth took the wrong step in 2019,” he said in an apparent reference to Uddhav breaking the Shiv Sena’s alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party post the Assembly poll results over the sharing of the chief ministerial tenure.

“The Election Commission decided on the Shiv Sena name and bow and arrow symbol as per rules, and the office in the ‘vidhimandal’ (Legislature complex) is of the Shiv Sena. As far as property is concerned, we have no temptations,” Shinde had said on Monday.

The EC, in its order last week, had said that the outcome of the majority test in the legislative wing reflected the qualitative superiority of the majority test in favour of the Shinde faction of Shiv Sena and had ordered that the party name and the symbol will be retained by the Shinde faction.

The EC had allowed the Thackeray faction to keep the “flaming torch” poll symbol allocated to it till the completion of the Assembly by-polls in Maharashtra.

The EC order had said in a detailed order that the MLAs backing Shinde got nearly 76 per cent of votes in favour of the 55 winning Shiv Sena candidates in the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly polls and the Thackeray faction MLAs got 23.5 per cent of votes in favour of the winning Shiv Sena candidates.

(With agency inputs).