Battle for the Bow and Arrow

The Shiv Sena dispute before the Supreme Court is no longer just about MLAs and symbols, but about what legally defines a political party. AI generated image The fight over the Shiv Sena has moved well beyond Maharashtra’s familiar political theatre. In the Supreme Court, the dispute has narrowed to a question that is less dramatic on the surface but potentially far more consequential: what exactly makes a political party a political party? Is it the elected strength of its legislators? The...

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The Shiv Sena dispute before the Supreme Court is no longer just about MLAs and symbols, but about what legally defines a political party. AI generated image The fight over the Shiv Sena has moved well beyond Maharashtra’s familiar political theatre. In the Supreme Court, the dispute has narrowed to a question that is less dramatic on the surface but potentially far more consequential: what exactly makes a political party a political party? Is it the elected strength of its legislators? The organisation outside the legislature? The party constitution on record with the Election Commission? Or some combination of all three? That question lies at the centre of the legal battle between the factions led by Eknath Shinde and Uddhav Thackeray. Two Claims Senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul, appearing for the Shinde faction, has defended the Election Commission’s February 17, 2023 decision, recognising the Shinde camp as the Shiv Sena and allotting it the bow-and-arrow symbol. The Thackeray faction has challenged that decision. The bench is also dealing with challenges connected to the Maharashtra Assembly Speaker’s January 2024 decision on disqualification petitions. The Thackeray faction, represented by senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Devadatt Kamat, has drawn a sharp distinction between the political party and its legislature wing. Its argument is a group of MLAs breaking away from the legislative wing does not automatically mean that the political party itself has changed hands. The party’s organisation, structure and identity cannot simply be equated with the numbers sitting in the Assembly. The Shinde faction says the dispute was never merely about legislators walking out. According to its argument, the rupture extended into the wider political organisation, with competing meetings, resolutions and claims of support from party workers and functionaries. The legislative split was, in its telling, only one visible part of a larger party-wide conflict. That distinction determines whether the Election Commission could legitimately intervene under Paragraph 15 of the Election Symbols Order and decide which rival faction represented the recognised political party. Kaul has argued that the Commission was entitled to consider the wider organisational dispute rather than treating the matter as a purely legislative rebellion. Constitutional Tussle The courtroom fight has also brought an old Shiv Sena document back into the spotlight. Kaul has relied heavily on the constitution placed on record with the Election Commission after the poll panel raised objections to the party’s earlier structure. The material before the court says the Commission had, in the late 1990s, pushed for a more democratic organisational structure, including changes to the manner in which party office-bearers were selected. The 1999 constitution subsequently went on record. The Shinde side says the 2018 constitution represented a significant departure from that structure. Its argument is that the later arrangement concentrated substantial authority in the party chief and relied extensively on nominated or appointed office-bearers rather than elected organisational bodies. It has also questioned why its leaders participated in the organisational structure created under the 2018 arrangement and did not object to it at the time. Kaul has further argued that the 2018 constitution relied upon by the Thackeray faction was not registered with the Election Commission, while the 1999 constitution was on the Commission’s record. This has become a significant element of the Shinde faction’s case. The Thackeray faction, meanwhile, has relied on the Supreme Court’s earlier Constitution Bench judgment in the Subhash Desai matter to reinforce the distinction between a political party and its legislature party. The earlier judgment’s discussion about not conflating the political party with its legislature wing arose in the context of questions such as who could appoint the whip. It did not, according to the Shinde side, mean that the Election Commission must ignore legislative strength altogether when determining which faction represents a recognised political party. The Shinde side has also invoked the Sadiq Ali case, arguing that legislative majority remains a relevant consideration in a party-symbol dispute. The case has therefore increasingly begun to look like a legal examination of the Election Commission’s decision-making process. The Thackeray faction has questioned the Commission’s jurisdiction and the basis on which it concluded that there was a party-wide split. Its challenge effectively asks whether the Commission went too far in examining the internal structure of the Shiv Sena. The Shinde faction argues that Article 324 gives the Election Commission broad powers and that, when two groups claim the same recognised party, the Commission has to examine the party constitution, organisational structure and available evidence to identify which group represents the party. The practical difficulty is obvious. The Election Commission cannot ask every Shiv Sena member whom they support. Nor can it conduct a referendum among every booth-level worker. Kaul has therefore defended the organisational-majority approach as a workable method of assessing cadre support through recognised organisational bodies and elected representatives. The Shinde camp has also brought the events after the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly election into the argument. Shiv Sena and BJP fought the election together, but the government subsequently formed under Uddhav Thackeray was with Congress and NCP. According to the Shinde side, that political realignment created discontent among sections of the Shiv Sena organisation and contributed to the eventual split. The Thackeray faction disputes the broader narrative and maintains that the legislative rebellion cannot simply be converted into proof that the political party itself changed hands. It has also challenged the Maharashtra Speaker’s decision not to disqualify MLAs from either faction. The Supreme Court has examined questions about what could follow if that decision were set aside, including whether consequential disqualification could arise under the Tenth Schedule. Party recognition and legislative disqualification arise under different legal frameworks. The Shinde side has argued that earlier cases concerning disqualification cannot simply be transplanted into the Election Commission’s determination under the Symbols Order. The real question is no longer simply who has more MLAs. It is whether those MLAs, the party organisation, the constitution and the cadre can legally be treated as parts of the same answer. (The writer is a political observer. Views personal.)

Festival Fiasco

Correspondent

Dec 18, 2025

3 min read

Sheer neglect of procedure and muddled leadership have done more harm to IFFK than any act of censorship.

The International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) has long prided itself on being India’s most politically alert cinephile gathering and a place where serious cinema, global causes and robust debate intersect. This year, however, the 30th edition of the IFFK turned into a cautionary tale about how administrative laxity, dressed up as ideological resistance, can corrode credibility faster than any act of censorship.

At the heart of the controversy is the Union government’s initial denial of censorship exemption to 19 films slated for screening at the festival, including a clutch of Palestinian titles and even Sergei Eisenstein’s centenarian classic Battleship Potemkin. Four films were later cleared. However, protests followed and political denunciations came thick and fast. Kerala’s Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, stepped in with a directive that all scheduled films be screened. To many in the festival’s faithful audience, it looked like a familiar morality play - an overbearing Centre throttling artistic freedom, resisted heroically by a defiant state. But that tidy narrative is now fraying.

Deepika Suseelan, artistic director of IFFK as recently as 2022, has punctured the balloon with an inconvenient reminder: censorship exemptions are governed less by ideology than by paperwork. And paperwork, she suggests, was precisely where the organisers failed. Exemption, she notes, is not granted on the fly. It requires applications to be submitted at least a month in advance. For a December festival, that means early November. The exemption order itself is typically expected a fortnight before the festival opens.

This year, according to her, the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy (KSCA), which runs IFFK, submitted its application perilously late, only this month. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, she says, cited this delay as the sole reason for denial. If so, outrage directed at Delhi may be theatrics misdirected. Public grandstanding after administrative negligence as Suseelan tartly put it, is not a substitute for institutional discipline.

Others from within Kerala’s film fraternity echo that assessment. Filmmaker Dr Biju, a frequent IFFK participant and former jury member, has asked the most basic question: why were films scheduled at all without securing mandatory permissions? No serious international festival does that. To do so is to gamble the festival’s integrity on hope and to invite precisely the sort of last-minute chaos now unfolding.

Compounding the problem is a leadership vacuum. For the first time in its three-decade history, IFFK is being held without either an artistic director or the visible presence of its chairman. Resul Pookutty, the Oscar-winning sound designer who currently heads the KSCA, is abroad on prior commitments. Former chairman Kamal and others have noted that such an absence is institutionally indefensible.

The result is a credibility crisis that extends beyond this year’s screenings. Suseelan warns that mishandling the exemption process now could invite tighter scrutiny and stricter controls in future editions, complicating submissions, discouraging international participation and narrowing curatorial freedom. The damage, she suggests, will not be easy to undo.

There is also the question of intent. Choosing ‘Palestine 36’ as the opening film, which has been criticised by some as overtly one-sided political messaging, has fuelled perceptions that confrontation was not merely accidental.

The Modi government has adopted a calibrated West Asia policy, maintaining historic support for Palestinian welfare while deepening strategic ties with Israel. That balance has served India’s diplomatic and security interests well. Against this backdrop, it is neither unreasonable nor sinister for the Centre to expect strict procedural compliance before granting exemptions, especially when films are framed not merely as art but as political statements.

Kerala’s Chief Minister eventually directed that all films be screened, effectively converting a procedural lapse into a political showdown.

This may have played well to the gallery, but it sets a reckless precedent. If IFFK wishes to remain a serious festival rather than a performative one, it must relearn a basic truth: institutional credibility is built on process. When that collapses, no amount of righteous anger can fill the void.

Battle for the Bow and Arrow

Festival Fiasco

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