Shinde faction happy over SC’s acceptance of ECI order, Thackeray-led leaders say ‘justice has been served’

“The Supreme Court has not given a stay on the ECI order of allotting us the name and the symbol. The court has said it will hear the matter in two weeks. We will see what happens then but for now, the Supreme Court has accepted the ECI order and has rejected the demand of the opposite party,” Shinde said.

Shinde-led Sena MP Rahul Shewale said they are satisfied with the order and welcomed the decision. “We welcome the Supreme Court’s decision. The top court has refused to interfere with the ECI’s order,” Shewale said.

On the issue of disqualification of the MLAs of the Thackeray camp and issuing a whip to them, Shewale said, “After the EC decision, we can issue a whip to all the party MLAs but the Supreme Court has asked us not do so till the next order so we don’t have that in our mind right now.”

He was echoed by Shiv Sena party’s chief whip Bharat Gogawale who said, “We will not issue a whip in the next two weeks but after that, whenever it is required, we will issue diktats.”

Meanwhile, Arvind Sawant, an MP of the Thackeray-led faction, said, “The Supreme Court said it will hear the ECI decision after two weeks. We are satisfied that they considered our demand. Our petition has not been rejected. That means our plea was maintainable.” Sawant added that justice has been served.

“In our SLP, we had demanded that the symbol and name allotted to the Shinde faction be granted status-quo. But the court accepted that a hearing will be held after two weeks and until then, we can continue with the name. Also, until then, no disqualification notice will be served to our MLAs and no legal action will be taken against them. We have this protection and the party name and symbol until the next order which is after two weeks,” Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and MLC Anil Parab said.