Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray faction gets ‘flaming torch’ as poll symbol

The Election Commission on Monday allotted ‘flaming torch’ (mashaal) election symbol to the Uddhav Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena, rejecting their declare to the ‘Trishul’ citing spiritual connotation.

In an get on the dispute in the Shiv Sena, the Election Fee allotted ‘ShivSena – Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray’ as the get together identify for the Thackeray faction, and ‘Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena’ (Balasaheb’s Shiv Sena) as the title for the Eknath Shinde group of the occasion.

The Commission also questioned the Shinde faction to post a clean list of a few symbols by 10 am on Tuesday.

The Thackeray faction welcomed the Commission order and began publicising its new name and image on the party’s social media handles.

“We are content that the 3 names that issue to us most ? Uddhav ji, Balasaheb and Thackeray – are retained in the new name,” Thackeray loyalist and previous Maharashtra minister Bhaskar Jadhav reported.

Earlier Monday, the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction had approached the Delhi High Court docket seeking quashing of the Oct 8 Election Fee get freezing the get together name and election symbol of ‘bow and arrow’.

The EC experienced claimed the interim buy will go on “until the last perseverance of the dispute”.

Due to the fact, the final day for filing nominations for the November 3 by-election in the Andheri East Assembly seat is Oct 14, if the two factions make your mind up to contest they will have to use the new symbols.

The Fee also rejected ‘Trishul’ (trident) and mounting ‘Gada’ (mace) as election symbols claimed by the two factions of the Shiv Sena, citing their spiritual connotation.

It also pointed out that the ‘Rising Sun’ election image sought by each factions was reserved for the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar is learnt to have taken a hard stand towards the allocation of symbols with spiritual connotations to political parties.

The Commission mentioned that the ‘flaming torch’ symbol was earlier allotted to the Samata Party, which was derecognised in 2004. The Fee said it experienced decided to list the ‘flaming torch’ as a ‘free symbol’ adhering to the request from the Thackeray faction.

The rival factions of Shiv Sena experienced each claimed ‘Trishul’ and ‘Rising Sun’ as election symbols. The rival factions had also listed ‘Shiv Sena – Balasaheb Thackeray’ as their initial alternative for the occasion identify.

Staff Thackeray leaders Vinayak Raut and Anil Desai were being confabulating with legal professionals in the national money on the party’s lawful tactics as the Delhi Substantial Court was probably to listing the petition demanding the freezing of celebration name and symbol for listening to later this week.

The Commission experienced barred the two the factions from utilizing the identify ‘Shiv Sena’ and the election image ‘bow and arrow’ in order to place the rival groups on an even keel and to secure their legal rights and passions forward of the Andheri East assembly bypolls.

Shinde experienced rebelled versus Thackeray’s management, saying the aid of 40 of the Shiv Sena’s 55 MLAs and 12 of its 18 associates in the Lok Sabha.

Subsequent Thackeray’s resignation as chief minister of the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress coalition, Shinde grew to become main minister with the assist of the BJP.