Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray on Monday said the Election Commission (EC) had “no right” to take away the ‘Shiv Sena’ party name even as he challenged the EC’s allocation of the party name and symbol to the rival Sena faction led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde in the Supreme Court.
“The Shiv Sena’s name was given by my grandfather [Keshav Sitaram ‘Prabhodankar’ Thackeray] and my father [Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray]…you [EC] have no right to take it from me. You may take away the party’s election symbol… We can accept that. But we will not tolerate any heavy-handed attitude in the case of the party name. Hence, we have moved the Supreme Court on this count,” Mr. Thackeray said, addressing his party workers in Amravati.
Speaking on the second day of his tour of the Vidarbha region, Mr. Thackeray lashed out at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s politics of splitting parties, referring to NCP leader Ajit Pawar’s induction into the ruling BJP-Shinde Sena government along with several senior NCP leaders.
