Uddhav goes to court over EC’s Sena order

Uddhav Thackeray on Monday approached the Supreme Court to challenge an Election Commission of India (ECI) order that awarded the Shiv Sena name and its iconic bow-and-arrow symbol to a rival faction headed by Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde.

Uddhav Thackeray on Monday approached the Supreme Court to challenge an Election Commission of India (ECI) order that awarded the Shiv Sena name and its iconic bow-and-arrow symbol to a rival faction headed by Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde, whose camp earlier in the day took over the party’s office in the state legislative assembly, ratcheting up the battle for Bal Thackeray’s legacy.

Uddhav Thackeray (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT PHOTO)

In a petition, Thackeray told the top court that EC failed to act as a neutral arbiter in the feud between the two factions, and that its order dealt with issues directly linked to a batch of petitions being heard by the Supreme Court. The petition was mentioned for early listing but the court refused to pass an order. Later in the day, he also attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shinde’s ally, and said that he received calls from political leaders across the country after EC’s decision was announced last week.

“Everything has been stolen from me. The name and symbol of our party have been stolen but the name Thackeray cannot be stolen,” he said at Shiv Sena Bhavan in Dadar, Mumbai.

The morning began with Sena legislators taking charge of the party office in the assembly. The premises belonged to the Thackeray faction until Friday. “Since ECI has recognised us as the Shiv Sena, this office now belongs to us,” Sena’s chief whip Bharat Gogawale said.

Last Friday, ECI ruled that Shinde’s faction will inherit the original party’s name and its symbol, capping an eight-month-long feud between the two leaders over control of the regional party that suffered a vertical split last year when Shinde and 39 other legislators walked out of the party then led by Thackeray, and joined hands with the BJP to form the government.

The order was condemned by Thackeray, who criticised EC and said he will move the top court to challenge it. Shinde called it a victory of democracy. The two leaders will face off in two key assembly bypolls later this month, and the Mumbai municipal polls scheduled later this year.

Talking to reporters, Thackeray said EC’s decision was wrong and the apex court was the last ray of hope. “What the BJP did with us today, they can do it with anyone. If this continues, after 2024, there won’t be any democracy or election in the country,” he said, accusing the ruling party of undermining institutions.

“There is not a single instance where the party name and symbol were directly given to one faction… What was the need for the EC to give this decision in a hurry?” the former chief minister said. He said he received calls from West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, and many other leaders backing him.

Asked about the Shinde faction taking over some properties of the Shiv Sena, he said, “I dare them to stop using the name of my father and his photo. Let him put photo of his father and then seek votes.” Thackeray said the commission had already recognised his camp with a separate name Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and also given it flaming torch as symbol. “This means EC recognised our separate existence already,” he said.

On Monday morning, Gogawale and other Shinde loyalist lawmakers met speaker Rahul Narwekar and took charge of the Shiv Sena’s party office. The office packed with posters of Uddhav and his son Aaditya Thackeray will soon have photos of Shinde, his mentor Anand Dighe, along with Bal Thackeray, promised a legislator accompanying Gogawale.

The acrimony even reached BMC. Fearing that Shinde’s men would take over the BMC party office, former corporators from Thackeray’s faction rushed to the civic headquarters, spearheaded by former mayor Vishakha Raut. They shouted slogans and came armed with tomatoes. The body is run by an administrator at present.

Thackeray met close associates at the Shiv Sena Bhavan on Monday. Party leaders Sanjay Raut, Subhash Desai, Anil Desai and Anil Parab were present, as were district-level leaders. The Bhavan is owned by is owned by the Shivai trust which is controlled by the Thackeray family and therefore remains in Thackeray’s control.

In its order, ECI followed the procedure laid down in a 1971 Supreme Court judgment, which says such cases must be decided on the basis of a triple test. ECI found that the conclusion of the first two benchmarks were inconclusive. The first test — objectives of the party constitution — was deemed improper because the 2018 constitution of the Shiv Sena was found to be undemocratic and concentrated power in the hands of a few. The second test — that of the majority in the organisational body of the party — was also not considered because the poll panel found that neither side provided accurate details of the composition of internal bodies, and no determinable or satisfactory findings could be ascertained.

Therefore, ECI relied on the third prong — the test of majority in the legislative wing. Here, the poll body found that 40 of the 55 members of legislative assembly backed the Shinde faction, which translated to 76% of the total votes polled by the unified party in the 2019 assembly elections. Moreover, 13 of the 18 Lok Sabha members of the party backed Shinde, which translated to 73% of the total votes polled in the 2019 general elections.

But in his petition, Thackeray challenged this. He argued that the Sena constitution recognised the Pratinidhi Sabha as the apex representative body of the party and that he had the support of 160 of its 200 members. “The Election Commission has failed to discharge its duties as a neutral arbiter of disputes under para 15 of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 and has acted in a manner undermining its constitutional status,” said the appeal filed by advocate Amit Anand Tiwari and settled by senior advocate Devadatt Kamat.