Supreme Court to hear Uddhav Thackeray’s plea to use ‘Shiv Sena’ name, party symbol for local elections on July 14

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday (July 2, 2025) to urgently hear an application to let his faction use the party name ‘Shiv Sena’ with its reserved symbol of ‘bow and arrow’ and the ‘saffron flag with two horizontal conical ends’ with the emblem of ‘roaring tiger’ for the forthcoming Maharashtra local body elections.

Making an urgent oral mentioning before a Vacation Bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and Vinod Chandran, senior advocate Devadatt Kamat, for Mr. Thackeray, said the State Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his group must be restrained from using the party name, the reserved symbol and the flag with the emblem.

Mr. Kamat submitted that voters consider these emblems as the “pious” markings of the original ‘Shiv Sena’ party.

“The symbols ‘bow and arrow’ , ‘saffron-coloured flag’ and the ‘roaring tiger’ are the very identity of the original Shiv Sena party from 1985… Shiv Sena in its original form has been consistently elected by voters,” the application by Mr. Thackeray said.

After Mr. Shinde and a group of his loyalists broke away from the undivided party then led by Mr. Thackeray, the Election Commission of India (ECI) had ruled in favour of the Deputy Chief Minister and allotted the name ‘Shiv Sena’ and the party’s reserved symbol to his faction in February 2023.

Mr. Thackeray had challenged the ECI decision and the case has been pending in the apex court for two years.

On Wednesday (July 2, 2025), Mr. Thackeray’s application urged the apex court to direct the ECI to allot a different party name and symbol to Mr. Shinde’s group for the upcoming elections to 27 municipal corporations, 232 municipal councils and 125 nagar panchayats in Maharashtra.

Mr. Kamat even suggested an alternative. He referred to how the apex court had intervened in the case of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), by allowing the breakaway faction of Ajit Pawar to use the party’s original ‘clock’ symbol, provided that they issued a public notice. The notice, widely circulated in the media, must clarify that the dispute over ECI’s allocation of the symbol to Mr. Ajit Pawar was still sub judice in the Supreme Court. The senior counsel said the court could come up with an identical order in the case of the Shiv Sena too for the local body elections.

“The challenge to the ECI decision on the Shiv Sena party symbol has been pending here for the past two years. Now, the problem is there is going to be local body elections… There has to be some interim arrangement. Your Lordships had given an interim arrangement in the NCP matter. Same can be done for Shiv Sena also. Once the election is notified, symbols would be allotted. I cannot seek any change then. Have this application at least next week,” Mr. Kamat said.

Also Read | Symbol row: focus on local body polls, Supreme Court tells Shiv Sena (UBT)

The counsel for Mr. Shinde’s side said elections to both the Lok Sabha and the Vidhan Sabha had been held with no such changes. The apex court had declined to entertain a similar request from Mr. Thackeray’s camp earlier on May 7, he countered.

The Vacation Bench listed the case for July 14.

The Supreme Court, on May 6, ordered the conduct of local body elections in Maharashtra, which had been stalled for years due to litigation over reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBC). The top court had said an endeavour should be made to conclude the elections within a period of four months. On June 6, the Maharashtra government had given instructions to commence the election process for 27 municipal corporations by initiating the drafting of ward boundaries.