Sena vs Sena: SC refuses urgent hearing on Uddhav Thackeray's plea challenging EC decision

The Uddhav faction has challenged the "factual" mistakes in the Election Commission’s order to allot the bow and arrow symbol to Shinde camp.

The Supreme Court on Monday refused an urgent hearing of a petition by the Uddhav Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena, challenging the Election Commission's order to allocate the bow and arrow symbol to Shinde camp.

"Sorry. You have to come under the mentioning list. Come tomorrow," the bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud for an early listing of the Thackeray-led Sena faction's petition.

The Uddhav faction has challenged the "factual" mistakes in the poll body's order.

Uddhav camp claimed that the EC's order is inconsistent and, since the Shinde group was weak on the organisational side, so deliberately the poll body has called the party's constitution undemocratic and has set it aside to decide it on majority.

In a unanimous order, the Commission allowed the Thackeray faction to retain the name Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and the 'flaming torch' poll symbol, given to it in an interim order last year, till the conclusion of ongoing assembly bypolls in the state.

The Commission said it applied the principles of the 'Test of party Constitution' and the 'Test of Majority' while finalising the order. The Commission said MLAs backing 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 Thackeray faction's MLAs got 23.5 per cent of votes polled in favour of the winning Shiv Sena candidates, it added. The 40 MLAs supporting the petitioner (Shinde) garnered 36,57327 votes out of 47,82440 votes in the last assembly election. This is in contrast with 11,25113 votes by 15 MLAs of the Uddhav camp. "overwhelming numerical superiority of the petitioner in the legislative wing is categorically verifiable," it said.

As against 90,49,789, total votes polled by Shiv Sena in the General election to the Legislative Assembly of Maharashtra in 2019 (including the losing candidates), votes polled by 40 MLAs supporting the Shinde faction come to ~40 per cent whereas votes polled by 15 MLAs supporting the Uddhav Thackeray faction come to ~12 per cent of total votes, the EC said. The 13 MPs supporting the Shinde faction garnered 74,88,634 votes out of a total of 1,02,45143 votes i.e ~73 per cent of votes polled in favour of 18 MPs in the general election to the Lok Sabha, 2019.

This contrasts with 27,56,509 votes garnered by 5 MPs supporting the Uddhav Thackeray faction (although claimed 6 and affidavits filed by only 4) i.e ~ 27 per cent of votes polled in favour of 18 MPs, it said.

This was seen as a major embarrassment for Uddhav as this was the first time the Thackeray family has lost control of the party founded in 1966 by Balasaheb Thackeray on the principles of justice for the sons of the soil.