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Eknath Shinde faction recognised as real Shiv Sena, allocated ‘bow and arrow’ poll symbol

The Election Commission of India on February 17 recognised the Eknath Shinde-led faction as the real Shiv Sena and ordered allocation of the “bow and arrow” poll symbol to it.

In a 78-page order on the protracted battle for control of the organisation, the Commission allowed the Uddhav Thackeray faction to keep the “flaming torch” poll symbol allocated to it till the completion of the Assembly bypolls in the State.

The Commission said MLAs backing Shinde got nearly 76% of votes polled in favour of the 55 winning Shiv Sena candidates in the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly polls. The Thackeray faction MLAs got 23.5% of votes polled in favour of the winning Shiv Sena candidates, the three-member Commission said in a unanimous order.

The Commission observed that the current constitution of the Shiv Sena party is undemocratic. It has been mutilated to undemocratically appoint people from a coterie as office bearers without any election at all. Such party structures fail to inspire confidence. In a landmark decision with far-reaching implications on political parties and their conduct, the ECI advised all political parties to reflect democratic ethos and principles of inner party democracy and regularly disclose on their respective websites aspects of their inner party functioning, such as organisational details, holding of elections, the copy of Constitution and list of office bearers.

“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 Shiv Sena 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. The ECI observed that the undemocratic norms of the original Constitution of Shiv Sena, which was not accepted by the Commission in 1999 have been brought back in a surreptitious manner further making the party akin to a fiefdom.

The Rashtriya Karyakarini is a body which is ‘elected’ by a largely ‘appointed’ Pratinidhi Sabha. The Commission conveyed to Shiv Sena in the year 1999 on the draft amendments when Bala Saheb was made leader of Sena for life: “To put in a nutshell, the party Constitution envisages the President nominating the Electoral College that is to elect him. Therefore, any reliance on the ‘Test of Party Constitution’ for determining the present dispute case will be undemocratic and catalytic in spreading such practices across parties.

The ECI said that the 2018 Constitution of SS, by way of its plain reading on the vital axis of remedy/modality of dissent, stifles all options of the rival group(s) in its very formulation. It confers widespread powers of making various organisational appointments on a single person.

Last month, both the Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and former CM Uddhav Thackeray-led factions of the Shiv Sena submitted their written statements in support of their claims of control over the party name and symbol to the Election Commission.

The ECI had frozen the bow and arrow symbol of the Shiv Sena and had allotted the ‘Two Swords and Shield symbol’ to the Eknath Shinde faction of Shiv Sena and the ‘flaming torch’ (mashaal) election symbol was allotted to the Uddhav Thackeray faction for the bypoll in Andheri East assembly constituency in November last year. In November last year, Uddhav Thackeray had moved a writ plea in the Delhi High Court against the ECI decision to freeze Election Symbol of Bow and Arrow. However, the plea was dismissed by the court.

Notably, EC passed the interim order saying in Andheri East bypolls, neither of the two groups shall be permitted to use the symbol “Bow and Arrow”, reserved for “Shiv Sena”. The Commission’s ruling had come amid the ongoing symbol war between the Uddhav Thackeray camp and rival Eknath Shinde camp.