Sikh community leaders have raised concerns over the party symbol allotted to Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s faction of Shiv Sena. The leaders said, the symbol – “two swords and a shield” – was the religious symbol of the Khalsa panth.
Ranjitsingh Kamthekar, former secretary of Gurudwara Sachkhand Board, Nanded, and a local Congress leader has written to Election Commission (EC) to not allow the symbol as it has religious connotations. Kamthekar said if the EC does not act on their complaint, they might move the court for action.
“Our religious Guru, Shri Guru Gobind Singh had set the sword and shield as the religious symbol of the Khalsa panth,” the Hindustan Times quoted him as saying.
Kamthekar said the EC had cited religious connotations as reasons for rejecting trident and mace to Shinde and Uddhav Thackeray factions and suggested that the election body had overlooked the religious connotation of “two swords and a shield.”
“I want to bring to the notice of the EC that even the symbol allotted to the Shinde faction too has religious implications. I hope the EC will take note of it,” he told Hindustan Times.
Shinde on October 11 welcomed the Election Commission of India’s decision to grant his faction of the Shiv Sena the ‘two swords and a shield’ symbol, saying it was associated with Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and also the old Sena.
Their first choice was ‘the sun’, Shinde told reporters here. “Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena is the Shiv Sena of the common man. We accept this decision of the EC. We had given priority to the ‘sun’ symbol, but it approved swords and shield. This is the symbol of the old Shiv Sena…This is a Maharashtrian symbol. It is the symbol of Chhatrapati Shivaji and his mavalas (soldiers),” he added.
Two swords and a shield was one of the symbols the Shiv Sena, founded by Bal Thackeray, used in the 1967-68 civic polls in Mumbai and elsewhere. The Shinde faction, now named as ‘Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena’, will be able to use the new symbol in the November 3 Andheri East Assembly bypoll if it decided to contest the election, though its ally BJP is likely to field its own candidate against the Uddhav Thackeray faction’s nominee.
The rival Sena faction led by Thackeray has been granted ‘Flaming Torch’ as its symbol after the EC held last week that the two groups would not be able to use the Sena’s ‘Bow and Arrow’ symbol following the split. The Shinde group had proposed ‘peepal tree’, ‘sword and shield’ and ‘sun’ as its choices.
Shinde faction spokesperson Sheetal Mhatre said the new symbol was a “blessing of Chhatrapati Shivaji” and will defeat “evil powers.”
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