The chairman of the opposition wing, Uddhav Thackeray, summoned a conference of senior opposition politicians on Saturday to consider the following steps after Election Committee (EC) acknowledged the Eknath Shinde-led section as the legitimate Shiv Sena.
Shiv Sena members, senior officials, board politicians, and spokespeople will gather in the midday at Thackeray’s home, “Matoshree,” in the outlying Mumbai area. The Commission on Friday gave the party headed by Chief Minister Shinde the title “Shiv Sena” and its election emblem, “crossbow,” dealing a devastating blow to Thackeray.
The multiple-member Commission stated that it had depended on the current party’s social or economic status in the parliamentary branch, where another ministry secured the allegiance of Forty of the 56 Assembly constituencies and 13 of the 18 Legislative Council representatives in a majority ruling on the six-month-old case brought by Shinde.
In June of the previous year, Shinde parted with Thackeray and partnered with Bharatiya Janata Party to create the administration (BJP). In its decision, the Committee observed that 40 Democratic candidates who supported the Shinde group received 36,57,327 voters from a total of 47,82,440 voters, or around 76% of the ballots counted in favor of the 55 victorious members.
The above contrasted with the 11,25,113 ballots that 15 MLAs who supported the Thackeray group claimed to have obtained. The Election Commission’s ruling was branded “destructive for democratic” by Thackeray on Friday, and he vowed to appeal it before the Judiciary. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Shinde hailed the move as a “triumph of the reality of the situation and humanity.”