Outlook Explains | Uddhav Vs Shinde: Who Controls Shiv Sena Today?

Four years on from when Eknath Shinde engineered a split in the Shiv Sena, the question his rebellion posed — who actually owns the party — still does not have a final answer. The party's name and its bow-and-arrow symbol now belong, on paper, to Shinde. But the 2026 municipal election results suggest that Uddhav Thackeray's rebranded Shiv Sena (UBT) retains loyalty in the party's Mumbai heartland .

The dispute is no longer just about Maharashtra. It has become the template India's Election Commission applies whenever a major party splits — most recently invoked in 2026 as the Trinamool Congress faced its own internal rebellion in West Bengal, with both TMC factions citing the Shiv Sena precedent in their competing claims to the party's twin-flower symbol.

When Shinde broke away in June 2022, both factions immediately laid claim to the Shiv Sena name and its bow-and-arrow symbol, a mark deeply tied to the party's identity since its founding in 1966 by Bal Thackeray.

The Election Commission froze the symbol in October 2022 pending adjudication, and allotted temporary identities to both sides for the Andheri East bypoll: 'Two Swords and Shield' for Shinde's faction, and 'flaming torch' (mashaal) for Thackeray's.

Nearly eight months after the split, the ECI delivered its verdict on February 17, 2023, the name 'Shiv Sena' and the bow-and-arrow symbol would be retained permanently by the Shinde faction.

Uddhav Thackeray called the decision a murder of democracy, accused the ECI of allowing Shinde to steal the party, and vowed to fight on. His faction was compelled to rebrand as Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and has contested every election since under the flaming torch symbol it was initially given on an interim basis.

How The Election Commission Decided The Case

The ECI's reasoning rested on two pillars, legislative majority, and the party's internal constitution. On the numbers, the Shinde camp had a clear edge. The faction commanded 40 of 55 Shiv Sena MLAs and 13 of 18 Shiv Sena MPs at the time of adjudication.

On the constitutional test, the Commission ruled against Thackeray on different grounds entirely. It found that the Shiv Sena constitution his faction relied upon was undemocratic, noting that internal structures allowing concentration of power had crept back into the party despite being rejected by the ECI when it first registered the party in 1999.

Thackeray's faction challenged the ruling before the Supreme Court, arguing that the ECI had overstepped its role as a neutral arbiter by deciding the dispute purely on legislative headcount rather than on organisational structure or ideological continuity.

The case remains pending. The Supreme Court's Constitution Bench separately ruled in May 2023 that it is the political party — not the legislature party — that holds the authority to appoint a Whip, a finding the Thackeray camp has cited as support for its broader argument, even as the symbol verdict itself stands unreversed.

Which Faction Has More MLAs And MPs?

In the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly election Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena won 57 seats statewide, compared to just 20 for Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena (UBT). In the 52 constituencies where the two factions went head-to-head, Shinde's Sena won 36 to Thackeray's 16.

But the picture is markedly different at the civic level, and specifically in Mumbai, the party's spiritual home. In the 2026 Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections  Shiv Sena UBT won 65 of the 163 seats it contested, while Shinde's Shiv Sena won just 29 of 90 seats contested. Where the two factions directly clashed on 50 Mumbai seats, UBT won 34.

The Role Of BJP In Shinde's Rise

Shinde's rebellion did not occur in isolation. With BJP's support, Shinde returned to Mumbai with the rebel MLAs. The Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition government collapsed, and Shinde was installed as Chief Minister.

The alliance has reshaped Maharashtra's political map. BJP has used the partnership to consolidate its own position, with Devendra Fadnavis returning to high office and the BJP-Shinde combine emerging as the dominant force in the 2024 assembly elections.

Critics of the arrangement argue that BJP's backing was instrumental not just in enabling the original split but in sustaining Shinde's faction through subsequent legal and electoral battles, effectively absorbing a large chunk of the Hindutva vote base that Shiv Sena once held exclusively.

What The Next Election Could Mean

The 2026 BMC result has injected fresh uncertainty into a dispute many assumed the ECI's 2023 order had settled. Shiv Sena UBT's strong showing in Mumbai, built substantially on Thackeray's enduring personal connection to the city, suggests that legal recognition and ground-level political loyalty are not the same currency.

With the Supreme Court still to rule on Thackeray's core challenge, and with the Shiv Sena precedent now being actively cited in other party-split disputes including the ongoing TMC crisis, the next state and national elections will likely be read as much for what they reveal about Sena's true inheritor as for their own results. For now, Maharashtra has effectively two Shiv Senas, two symbols, and two claims to one legacy.