The Election Commission on Tuesday allotted ‘two swords and a shield’ as the election symbol to the Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led faction of the Shiv Sena, news agency PTI reported.
The Shinde faction is now named as ‘Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena’ after the poll body freezed the ‘Shiv Sena’ name and the ‘bow and arrow’ poll symbol of the party ahead of the upcoming Andheri East assembly bypoll, which is scheduled on November 3.
The Babasahebanchi Shiv Sena faction of the party will now be able to use the sword symbol for the bye-polls, which is necessitated following the death of MLA Ramesh Latke.
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The Shinde faction had earlier furnished the EC with three symbols – peepal tree, sun, and sword and shield symbol as its choices.
“The symbol is not in the list of free symbols. It resembles an erstwhile reserved symbol ‘Do Talwarein aur Ek Dhal (Two Swords & Shield)’ of ‘People’s Democratic Movement’ which was derecognised as a state party in 2004 and further delisted on 26.12.2016,” the EC said in a letter to Shinde, as quoted by The Indian Express.
The groups first preference of the “Sun” symbol was earlier rejected by the EC saying it resembles already reserved symbols – without rays allotted to the Zoram Nationalist Party and the rising sun to the Tamil Nadu ruling party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), as per the IE report.
The poll panel also rejected other two symbols choices of the Shinde faction – “Trishul (trident)” and “Gada (mace)” – saying the symbols had religious connotations.
Also Read: Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena gives 3 choices for poll symbol – trident, rising sun or burning torch
Meanwhile, the Uddhav Thackeray faction has been allotted the “mashal (flaming torch)” symbol by the EC.