NEW DELHI: Having got over two-thirds of Shiv Sena MLAs and now 12 of the 19 Sena MPs on their side, CM Eknath Shinde's faction on Tuesday approached the Election Commission with what appears to be a plea to be recognized as the real 'Shiv Sena'.
Sources in the EC confirmed having received a letter from the Sena faction led by Shinde at around 6 pm on Tuesday, hours after 12 of the party's 19 MPs wrote to the Lok Sabha speaker asking that their colleague Rahul Shewale be recognised as their leader and Bhawana Gawli as the chief whip.
Shinde's move raises the prospect of the Uddhav faction of Sena having to contest the cruical BMC polls without the "bow and arrow" symbol that has been synonymous with it.
The letter to EC refers to support of 12 Sena MPs to the Shinde faction, said a source. Though further details were not available, the speculation is the Shinde faction may be seeking to be recognized as the 'real' Shiv Sena, with the right to use its reserved party symbol 'bow and arrow'. The Uddhav faction, in a preemptive move, had earlier written to EC requesting that its views be heard in case of a claim to the party's name and symbol.
Precedents show the EC - which hears all disputes over symbols by virtue of powers vested in it by Article 324 of the Constitution - goes by the twin criteria of majority support in the organisational and legislative wings, as upheld by SC in the case of Sadiq Ali vs ECI and others, to determine which of the factions is the real party and thus entitled to use of symbol. The EC evaluates the majority support on the basis of written as well as oral submissions by the factions regarding backing within the party organization and in the legislative and parliamentary wing. With BMC polls imminent, the options before EC are to either decide the dispute before polls are held or to freeze the Shiv Sena poll symbol in the interim and ask the warring factions to choose a new party name and symbol to fight the civic polls.
Bharti Jain is senior editor with The Times of India, New Delhi. ...
Read MoreBharti Jain is senior editor with The Times of India, New Delhi. She has been writing on security matters since 1996. Having covered the Union home ministry, security agencies, Election Commission and the ‘prime’ political beat, the Congress, for The Economic Times all these years, she moved to TOI in August 2012. Her repertoire of news stories delves into the whole gamut of issues related to terrorism and internal strife, besides probing strategic affairs in India’s neighbourhood.
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