In a landmark order, the election commission on Friday passed the bow and arrow election symbol to Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde-led faction of the Shiv Sena, which will be known as Shiv Sena from now on, according to the EC order. Backed by the BJP, 40 MLAs of erstwhile Shiv Sena put up a rebellion against Uddhav Thackeray, the former chief minister of Maharashtra, and withdrew their support from the government. While this led to a change of guard in the state, Shiv Sena witnessed a new crisis with the faction led by Shinde claiming to be the real Shiv Sena. The crisis was over the name and the election symbol of Shiv Sena.
In the order, the rebel group emerges victorious and takes away Shiv Sena’s election symbol. In its 78-page order, the EC deliberated how they came to the decision based on the majority.
1. Election Commission looked at the party constitution of 2018 to decide the question of majority.
While there is no legal sequencing, we begin by examining the support enjoyed by both the groups in the organisation wing of the party, the EC said. “For a test, a filter has been invoked by the Commission previously to achieve a cut off to determine at what level of the party organigram the rest should run…” it said.
But there was no satisfactory conclusion as the 2018 constitution of the party is not on the record of the EC, it said.
2. The EC then went on to assess the number of MPs, MLAs and MLCs each faction has. Petitioner (Eknath Shinde) claimed the support of 40/55 MLAs and 13/19 MPs. Respondent (Uddhav Thackeray) has the support of 15/55 MLAs, 7/19 MPs in the Lok Sabha and 3/3 MPs in Rajya Sabha.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
Observing the absence of democratic internal structures in the Shiv Sena, the election commission said by the time such a dispute comes to the commission, the party starts appointing people as office bearers undemocratically. Such party structures “fail to inspire confidence” of the EC and thereby EC is forced to ignore the numerical strength of factions. “This seemingly unjust situation is often a creation of the party itself which failed to create a robust Constitution…” it said.