Election Symbol Assigned To Shinde's 'Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena'

Eknath Shinde’s faction, which has been a part of the former Shiv Sena has been assigned a new Election symbol by the Election commission body for the upcoming bye-polls.

As advised by the polling body, Shinde’s group submitted another list. After the re-submission of the list, EC allotted the faction “dhal talwar (two swords with a shield)” as the symbol and uploaded it on the website. The name (Babasahebanchi Shiv Sena) had been already given to Shinde’s faction, but the party got its election symbol on October 11 2022. The Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has also shared the party’s election symbol on his Instagram handle and Twitter account as well.

The Split in Shiv Sena

The month-end of June marks the split in the Shiv Sena as Thackeray’s coalition government failed to satisfy the other members of the party or maybe because of other reasons as well. Shinde got the majority of the party on his side and also took the help from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

And as soon as, the faction got the support from BJP, Eknath Shinde from Shiv Sena was assigned the post of the Chief Minister of Maharashtra and Devendra Fadnavis from BJP got the post of Deputy Chief Minister.

Much after the split in Shiv Sena, two weeks earlier from now, the Election commission body had ordered both the groups of Shinde’s and Thackeray’s not to use the party’s name and Election symbol of bow and arrow and asked them to submit their new names and symbol for the upcoming Andheri East Assembly Elections.

Thackeray’s side had submitted three symbols and pleaded to the Election Commission body to select one of these three symbols presented to them. Those were, ‘Trident’ , ‘Burning torch’ (Mashaal) ‘Rising sun’, whereas Shinde’s faction provided the Election commission with a ‘Trident’ , ‘Rising sun’ and ‘mace’.

New Names and symbols

After the submission of the names and symbols from both the factions, the EC gave a green flag to Udhav’s faction to use a ‘burning torch’ as their election symbol in the upcoming elections. And Udhav’s Sena got their new name as Shiv Sena (Udhav Balasaheb Thackeray), while the Shinde’s group was renamed as ‘Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena’. And to mention the election symbol of the Shinde’s faction, EC asked them to submit a new and fresh list for their election symbol by Tuesday, October 11, 2022, 10 AM.

Both the sides of the Shiv Sena made their priorities clear in the submission to get ‘Shiv Sena-Balasaheb Thackeray’ as the name for their respective parties because both the parties are claiming to be the real Shiv Sena.

After the decision made by the Election conducting body, the former Maharashtra Minister was pleased by the fact that they have restrained the names that hold the most importance to them which is Uddhav Ji, Balasaheb, and Thackeray.

They also consider the decision of Election commission as a major victory in these kinds of circumstances, where they might have been feeling kind of disheartened because of Uddhav Thackeray’s removal from the Chief Minister’s post.