The Election Commission on Friday ordered that the Eknath Shinde faction of Shiv Sena will get the official name of Shiv Sena and the bow-arrow symbol of the Balasaheb Thackeray party.
There was an ongoing tussle between the Shinde faction and the ex-CM Uddhav Thackeray‘s faction over these rights.
Following the rebellion spearheaded by Eknath Shinde which resulted in the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray government, the two factions have been dueling over the use of the official party names and symbol, the ‘bow-and-arrow.’
As the issue was pending with the EC, the official symbol was frozen and both factions were disallowed any official use.
For the bypolls, the two factions were allotted two different symbols, ‘two swords and a shield’ for the Shinde faction and a flaming torch or ‘mashaal‘ for the Uddhav faction.
`This is a big day for us. We have been saying that the decision will be taken because of merit. We have been saying that we are real Shiv Sena. Now, a lot of Shiv Sena (UBT) men will come to us because we have the symbol and the party name to get the winning edge,’ Sheetal Mhatre, spokesperson for Shinde’s faction said.
This development would be viewed as a huge setback to the Uddhav Thackeray faction, even as Chief Minister Eknath Shinde called it a ‘victory of Balasaheb Thackeray’s ideology’.
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