The Shiv Sena camp of Uddhav Thackeray provided the Election Commission with a list of three names and symbols for the impending byelections for the Andheri East Assembly constituency.
The Election Commission (EC) on Saturday froze the emblem, prohibiting both of the opposing camps in the party from using it in the impending Assembly bypoll scheduled for November 3, amid a dispute over the Shiv Sena’s claim to the “Bow and Arrow” sign. Following this, the Thackeray faction on Sunday offered the Election Commission “Trishul,” “Rising Sun,” and “Torch” as potential party symbols.
For the next bye-elections, the Thackeray camp also proposed three names: Shiv Sena (Balasaheb Thackeray), Shiv Sena (Prabodhankar Thackeray), and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray).
Shiv Sena (Uddhav faction) MP Arvind Sawant said to reporters, “Our party’s name is Shiv Sena; if ECI grants any names linked to Shiv Sena, including ‘Shiv Sena (Balasaheb Thackeray)’, ‘Shiv Sena (Prabodhankar Thackeray)’, or ‘Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray)’, we will contest.”
The opposition Thackeray camp, according to the Shinde side, would not win any votes and was occupied with garnering popular pity.
Lawmaker in Chief Minister Shinde’s cabinet, Deepak Kesarkar, said, “They (Uddhav faction) have not done anything in the past 2.5 years. People would not vote for them, so they are seeking sympathy. We should pay respect to ECI as a constitutional authority. We should not insult them over Twitter.”
“We have all the documents and we have a majority. We will get justice and the symbol as well,” added Kesarkar.
After the Election Commission (EC) frozen the symbol, preventing both of the party’s opposing camps from using it in the upcoming Assembly byelection scheduled for November 3, Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray referred to the Eknath Shinde-led faction of the party, which is led by the chief minister of Maharashtra, as “traitors.”
“Boxed traitors today have committed a despicable and shameless act of freezing the Shiv Sena’s name and symbol. The people of Maharashtra will not tolerate this. I will fight and win! We are on the side of truth! Satyamev Jayate!” Aaditya Thackeray tweeted in Marathi.
Notably, the EC issued an interim decision stating that neither of the two parties may use the “Bow and Arrow” symbol in the Andheri East by-elections, which is reserved for the “Shiv Sena.”
The Commission’s decision was made in the midst of the ongoing symbol conflict between the competing Eknath Shinde camp and the Uddhav Thackeray camp.