Eknath Shinde Named Shiv Sena Chief at Key Party Meeting; 80% Jobs for Locals Proposed

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde was announced as the ‘Mukhya Neta’ (chief leader) of the Shiv Sena at the party’s national executive meeting on Tuesday evening, which comes four days after the Election Commission allotted his faction the Shiv Sena’s bow and arrow’ election symbol.

The meeting saw Shiv Sena leaders unanimously giving CM Shinde all the rights to take decisions.

While Uddhav Thackeray was addressed as the Shiv Sena ‘Paksha Pramukh’ (party chief), Shinde will be called ‘Chief Leader’.

After today’s meeting, if a whip is issued by Shiv Sena, it will be applicable to everyone in the party and if not followed, due action will be taken.

These were part of the several proposals discussed at the meeting.

The post of Shiv Sena president will no longer be continued as the Election Commission had called it undemocratic.

The proposals

– Eknath Shinde was made the ‘chief leader’ of Shiv Sena, who will have all the rights to take decisions.

– Proposal passed to honour Hindutva ideologue Veer Savarkar with Bharat Ratna.

– Proposal to accord Marathi language the status of an ‘elite language’.

– Resolution to provide natives of Maharashtra with 80 per cent of the jobs.

– Churchgate Railway Station to be named after Chintaman Rao Deshmukh.

– Proposal to form a 3-member committee to take action against party members breaking discipline and indulging in anti-party activities. Shiv Sena MLA Dada Bhuse will head the panel.

– Proposal to provide coaching to Marathi students for MPSC and UPSC exams.

The meeting was attended by MLAs, MPs and other Shiv Sena leaders who have been working with Shinde since he broke away from the party led by Uddhav Thackeray.

Shinde on Monday said no claim will be laid on any party property post the Election Commission decision on the real Shiv Sena as “we are heirs of Balasaheb Thackeray’s ideology and have no temptations”. “I have no greed for property or funds of the Shiv Sena. I am a person who has always given something to others,” he had told reporters.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will on Wednesday hear the Uddhav Thackeray faction’s plea challenging the decision of the Election Commission recognising the Eknath Shinde-led bloc as the real Shiv Sena.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Thackeray faction, mentioned the matter before a bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices Krishna Murari and P S Narasimha on Tuesday.

The petition filed by the Uddhav camp said the poll panel has acted in a “biased and unfair manner”. It is submitted that the ECI has failed to discharge its duties as a neutral arbiter of disputes under para 15 of the order of the symbols and has acted in a manner undermining its constitutional status, the petition alleged.

The poll panel had on Friday recognised the Eknath Shinde-faction as the real Shiv Sena and ordered allotment of the ‘bow and arrow’ election symbol of the undivided party founded by the late Balasaheb Thackeray to it.

In a 78-page order on the protracted battle for control of the organisation, the Commission allowed the Uddhav Thackeray faction to keep the ‘flaming torch’ poll symbol allotted to it till the completion of the assembly by-polls in the state.

The Commission said the MLAs backing Shinde got nearly 76 per cent of votes polled in favour of the 55 winning Shiv Sena candidates in the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly elections.

(With inputs from Mayuresh Ganapatye and PTI)

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