The faction of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has, at least for now, won the battle for the Shiv Sena legacy, with the Election Commission of India (ECI) allotting the party name and the bow and arrow symbol to it. The ECI overruled the plea by the other faction led by former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to withhold the decision until the Supreme Court of India decides on a set of interlinked questions related to the split in the party, that led to Mr. Thackeray losing the CM’s chair to Mr. Shinde in June 2022. ‘The ‘test of majority’ principle applied by the ECI went in favour of the Shinde group which has 40 MLAs and 13 MPs, compared to the 15 MLAs and five MPs on the Thackeray side. The Shinde group represented significantly more voters than the Thackeray faction, among those who voted for the party in the last elections, the ECI concluded. The ECI decided not to go into the ‘test of party constitution’, a second touchstone applicable in such situations, in an indictment of Mr. Thackeray, who made changes to the Sena constitution unilaterally and self-servingly. The ECI decision is a setback to Mr. Thackeray who is struggling hard to retain control of the party founded by his father in 1966.
The Court is scheduled to start hearing on petitions by both camps that claim to be the real Shiv Sena, from February 21 onwards. Whichever faction is accepted to be the real Shiv Sena would have the authority to coerce legislators through whips, as in provisions of the anti-defection law. The Shinde faction argues that the Chief Minister took control of the party following an internal rebellion, and as per majority desire; and nobody has defected, as is being accused by the Thackeray faction. The Court is also examining whether a presiding officer, whose legitimacy is itself under a cloud, could go on to determine the disqualification of legislators under the anti-defection law. Considering that these questions will be argued in the highest court in the coming week, the ECI could have waited. It is not likely that the ECI’s decision on the name and the symbol will also be raised in court. This legal tussle apart, the real combat between the two factions is for the popular base. On this count too Mr. Thackeray appears to have ceded ground to Mr. Shinde who is expanding his hold over cadres and networks. Evidently, Mr. Shinde’s political alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party is more palatable to party workers, who have been fed on high doses of religious extremism and regional fanaticism over the years, than Mr. Thackeray’s opportunistic experiments with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party.
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