Unexpected: Kharge, Rahul on Maha poll results
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said the outcome of the Maharashtra Assembly elections was unexpected.
The faction of Shiv Sena headed by former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Monday urged the Supreme Court for an urgent hearing on its plea against the Election Commission’s February 17 allotting the party name, Shiv Sena, and the election symbol ‘Bow and Arrow’, to Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s faction.
Upon a mentioning by senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi for an urgent listing of the plea, a bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandracud, Justice P S Narasimha and Justice J B Pardiwala asked him to make the mentioning on Tuesday, telling him that it was not in today’s list of mentioning and no unlisted mentioning would be entertained.
The Election Commission on February 17 had allotted the party name ‘Shiv Sena’ and the symbol ‘Bow and Arrow’ to the Maharashtra Chief Minister Shinde faction.
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Both the factions of Shiv Sena have been fighting for the bow and arrow symbol of the party since Shinde revolted against Thackeray last year. While the Shinde faction welcomed the decision of being recognized as the real Shiv Sena, the Uddhav Thackeray faction knocked the doors of the apex court challenging the poll panel’s decision.
The Thackeray faction has assailed the Election Commission of haste and said the decision shows “it works as a BJP agent” and had termed the poll panel’s decision as “murder of democracy”.
The Commission in its order had said that the constitution of the Shiv Sena party is undemocratic and has been “mutilated to undemocratically appoint people from a coterie as office bearers without any election at all”. It said such party structures fail to inspire confidence.
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