‘Will carry Mashaal with pride…’: Aaditya Thackeray on new poll symbol

Former Maharashtra minister Aaditya Thackeray on Monday lauded the new poll symbol – ‘Mashaal’ (flaming torch) as his party gets a new name – cleared by the Election Commission ahead of the next month’s bypoll in Mumbai’s Andheri. Stating that the former Uddhav Thackeray-led government had been “truthful and honest”, Thackeray said that the new symbol is “something that we will take with pride to every home”.

“With the new symbol, new name ‘Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray)’ – we are extremely proud of Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray. He has worked as a chief minister, saving thousands of lives in Maharashtra. We have been a truthful honest government, working for the people,” Aaditya Thackeray told the media, speaking about his father, news agency ANI reported.

“Most importantly, the ‘Mashaal’ (flaming torch) is something we will take with pride to every home,” he added.

The Election Commission of India on Monday allotted ‘ShivSena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray)’ as the party name to the Uddhav Thackeray faction and the flaming torch as its election symbol ahead of the bypolls on November 3.

A Thackeray loyalist, Bhaskar Jadhav also lauded the new name and said, “We are happy that the three names that matter to us most – Uddhav ji, Balasaheb, and Thackeray – are retained in the new name,” he was quoted as saying by ANI.

Meanwhile, the EC asked the Eknath Shinde-group faction to submit three options for poll symbols by 10 am on Tuesday. Shinde’s group name will be recognized as ‘Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena’.

Earlier, the poll panel had barred the Uddhav faction and Shinde faction from using ‘Trishul’, ‘Rising Sun’, and ‘Gada’ as symbols as they are “not in the list of free symbols”.

In June, a massive political crisis unfolded in Maharashtra that led to the fall of Thackeray’s coalition government. A day after the Uddhav Thackeray-led government collapsed, Eknath Shinde was named as the chief minister of Maharashtra with BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis as his deputy.