The Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde factions of the Shiv Sena on Monday made their final submissions before the Election Commission, asserting their claim to the party organisation and the poll symbol.
The written submissions were filed through their respective lawyers on Monday, which was the last day for presenting the documents .
“We are hopeful for an early verdict by the Election Commission,” Rahul Shewale, the Leader of the Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) in the Lok Sabha said.
On January 20, the rival factions had concluded their arguments before the Election Commission. Both sides had submitted thousands of documents to the poll panel over the past few months to support their claim and argued their respective cases before the Commission on three occasions.
Shinde walked out of the Shiv Sena in June last year to become the chief minister of Maharashtra with support from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), after toppling the Uddhav Thackeray-led coalition government.
The Shinde and Thackeray factions of the Sena have been locked in a battle for the control of the organisation since then.
In November last year, the Election Commission had asked the Sena factions to submit fresh documents to back their claim to the party’s name and poll symbol.
The Commission had also asked them to exchange the documents submitted to it with each other.
In an interim order in October, the poll panel had barred the two factions from using the party name or its “bow-and-arrow” symbol.
Later, it had allotted “Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray” as the party name for the Thackeray faction and “Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena” (Balasaheb’s Shiv Sena) as the name for the Shinde group.
The EC had said the interim order will be in force “till the final determination of the dispute”.
Shinde had rebelled against Thackeray’s leadership, claiming the support of 40 of the 56 MLAs of the Shiv Sena and 13 of its 18 Lok Sabha members.
Following Thackeray’s resignation as the Maharashtra chief minister, Shinde was appointed to the top post with the support of the BJP.
Paragraph 15 of the Election Symbols Order provides for the hearing of representatives of sections or groups.
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