Eknath Shinde: EC recognises Eknath Shinde faction as real Shiv Sena, allots it ‘bow and arrow’ symbol | India News

NEW DELHI: The Election Commission on Friday recognised Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde‘s faction as real Shiv Sena and allotted the ‘bow and arrow‘ poll symbol to it.
The Shiv Sena symbol was claimed by the party’s rival factions led by Shinde and former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray.
As of now, the two factions were using separate party names and symbols allotted to them after the EC ‘froze’ the Shiv Sena name and party symbol until the dispute was decided by it.

In its order, the Election Commission said that Shiv Sena’s constitution, amended in 2018, was not on record of poll panel.
“The 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 said.
“The 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 added.

Shinde hailed Election Commission’s decision and described it as victory of Balasaheb Thackeray’s ideology.
“I thank Election Commission. Majority counts in democracy. This is the victory of Balasaheb’s legacy. Ours is the true Shiv Sena,” he said.
“We set up the government in Maharashtra (with BJP) las year keeping in mind thoughts of Balasaheb,” Shinde said.
The Commission said MLAs backing Eknath Shinde got nearly 76 per cent of votes polled in favour of the 55 winning Shiv Sena candidates in the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly polls.
The Uddhav Thackeray faction’s MLAs got 23.5 per cent of votes polled in favour of the winning Shiv Sena candidates, the three-member Commission said in a unanimous order.
Meanwhile, Sanjay Raut (Uddhav-faction leader) said that the decision was expected and that they would go with a new symbol.
“We don’t need to worry. Public is with us. We’ll go with a new symbol and raise this Shiv Sena once again in the court of public,” Sanjay Raut told reporters.