SC agrees to hear Uddhav Thackeray faction's plea against EC decision
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court has agreed to hear on Wednesday the Uddhav Thackeray faction's plea challenging the decision of the Election Commission recognising the Eknath Shinde-led faction as the real Shiv Sena and ordering allocation of the "bow and arrow" poll symbol to it.
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.
"If the EC order is not stayed then they will take over the symbol and the bank accounts. Please list it tomorrow before the Constitution bench," Sibal submitted.
The top court said it needs to go through the case files and posted the matter for hearing at 3:30 pm on Wednesday
The Election Commission on Friday had recognised the Eknath Shinde-led faction as the real Shiv Sena and ordered the allocation of the "bow and arrow" poll symbol 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 allocated to it till the completion of the assembly by-polls in the state.
The Commission said 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 polls.
The Uddhav Thackeray faction's MLAs got 23.5 per cent of votes polled in favour of the winning Shiv Sena candidates, the three-member Commission said.
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Trump says he ‘hasn’t even thought about’ continuing Iran ceasefire
Washington: US President Donald Trump has said he has not yet considered whether he would continue the ceasefire involving Iran, while also claiming the United States holds the advantage in negotiations.
Speaking to reporters, Trump said he was prepared to make a deal with “whoever is running the show” in Iran.
“They are fighting with each other, there’s tremendous infighting. They’re probably fighting for leadership in many cases. I think they’re fighting not to be leader because we knocked out two levels of leaders,” he said.
Trump added, “When they want they can call me. We have all the cards, we’ve won everything.”
Referring to ongoing negotiations, he said, “They gave us a paper that should’ve been better. And, interestingly, immediately when I cancelled it [envoy trip to Pakistan], within 10 minutes we got a new paper that was much better.”
“We talked about they will not have a nuclear weapon, very simple … They offered a lot, but not enough,” he added.
When asked whether he would continue the ceasefire, Trump replied, “I haven’t even thought about it.”
The remarks come as uncertainty remains over the future of the temporary truce and broader negotiations between Washington and Tehran.
