The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Uddhav Thackeray-led faction to concentrate on local body polls after the party sought an urgent hearing on its plea against the Maharashtra assembly speaker's decision to give the bow and arrow symbol to the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh told senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Shiv Sena (UBT), the matter could be taken up only after the court's summer break due to the paucity of time.
Sibal said the assembly speaker gave the bow and arrow symbol to the Eknath Shinde faction in 2023 based on the legislative majority, which was contrary to the Constitution bench verdict of the top court.
"The symbol which has been with Shiv Sena will be used by the Shinde faction in local body elections and it will matter especially in rural areas," Sibal said.
Justice Kant, however, wondered since when local body polls were fought on party symbols.
Sibal said it happens in Maharashtra and the party symbol will have a great impact on voter라이브 바카라 minds.
"You let the elections be held. We have been told for more than five years the local body elections were not held in Maharashtra. You concentrate on polls. We will see what can be done," the bench remarked.
Sibal said in 2022 the court had only put a status quo due to which elections weren't held.
Justice Kant said he was therefore blaming the system for the delay and added the court could impose certain conditions on use of the symbol akin to the case of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) symbol row in Maharashtra assembly polls and 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The bench said the matter can be heard by a vacation bench if Sibal makes a case and if it's "so urgent".
The top court on May 6 paved way for the state's local body polls which were stalled for over five years due to a reservation issue and ordered the Maharashtra election panel to notify it in four weeks.
On January 10, 2024 Maharashtra legislative assembly speaker Rahul Narwekar rejected Shiv Sena (UBT) plea to disqualify 16 MLAs of the ruling camp, including Shinde.
Challenging the orders passed by the speaker in the apex court, the Thackeray-led faction claimed they were "patently unlawful and perverse" and instead of punishing the act of defection, they rewarded defectors by holding they comprised the real political party.
The speaker, the plea claimed, erred in holding majority legislators of the Shiv Sena represented the will of the Shiv Sena political party.
In his ruling on the disqualification petitions, the speaker did not disqualify any MLA belonging to the rival camps.
The speaker's ruling further cemented Shinde's position as the then chief minister, 18 months after he led a rebellion against Thackeray, and added to his political heft in the ruling coalition, which also consists of the BJP and the NCP (Ajit Pawar group), ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and state assembly elections.
In 2024 Lok Sabha election the Shinde faction won seven parliamentary seats whereas his faction won 57 seats in the assembly polls, the BJP won 132 seats and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP won 41 seats.
In December 2024, Fadnavis was back as the Maharashtra Chief Minister with Shinde and Pawar as deputy chief ministers.
