Have 10 lakh of 12 lakh primary Sena members, Uddhav told EC
In his letter to the Election Commission shortly before it froze his party’s symbol, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had sought to retain it and argued that his party had “overwhelming majority in the organisational and legislative wing of the party as well as among the cadres”.
Outlining its numbers, the letter said Shiv Sena had the support of 14 MLAs, 12 MLCs, seven Lok Sabha MPs and three Rajya Sabha MPs. By contrast, it said, the Ekanth Shinde faction had no MLAs or MPs with them since the 40 MLAs and 12 MPs in their camp were facing disqualification proceedings. “As the support of legislators/parliamentarians, whose membership itself is in a cloud, is to be discounted, it is clear that the petitioner is a hopeless minority as far as the legislative wing is concerned,” Thackeray’s letter said.
Of the 12 lakh primary members of the party, 10 lakh were with Thackeray and only 1.6 lakh were with the Shinde camp, the letter said.
It further said that 2.6 lakh members, who held organisational posts, were with Thackeray. Of the 29 state chiefs in the party, Thackeray claimed the support of 18 and said 11 were with Shinde. The letter also stated that of the 234-member national executive in the party, 160 supported Thackeray and none backed Shinde.
Thackeray’s letter said that since Shinde was no longer a member of the Shiv Sena, he could not make a bid to claim its bow-and-arrow symbol. The claim of a split within the party was “only a charade in an attempt to avoid disqualification,” it added.
Indeed, Thackeray’s response reiterated that he was the president of the Shiv Sena and that the Shinde faction had not disputed this. No claim over the election symbol could be made to the exclusion of the party president, the letter said.
Thackeray was elected party president in an organisational poll in 2018, and his term would remain valid till January 2023. The outcome of the poll had been accepted by the Election Commission, the response said. It further said that Shinde claimed to hold the post of Shiv Sena mukhya neta, but there was no such post in the party constitution.
