SC agrees to hear Uddhav Thackeray faction's plea against EC decision

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear on Wednesday the Uddhav Thackeray faction's plea challenging the decision of the Election Commission recognising the Eknath Shinde-led faction as the real Shiv Sena and ordering allocation of the "bow and arrow" poll symbol to it.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Thackeray faction, mentioned the matter before a bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices Krishna Murari and P S Narasimha on Tuesday.

If the EC order is not stayed then they will take over the symbol and the bank accounts. Please list it tomorrow before the Constitution bench, Sibal submitted.

The top court said it needs to go through the case files and posted the matter for hearing at 3:30 pm on Wednesday

The Election Commission on Friday had recognised the Eknath Shinde-led faction as the real Shiv Sena and ordered the allocation of the "bow and arrow" poll symbol to it.

In a 78-page order on the protracted battle for control of the organisation, the Commission allowed the Uddhav Thackeray faction to keep the "flaming torch" poll symbol allocated to it till the completion of the assembly by-polls in the state.

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 Uddhav Thackeray faction's MLAs got 23.5 per cent of votes polled in favour of the winning Shiv Sena candidates, the three-member Commission said.