Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray has said that the party’s election symbol of bow and arrow cannot be taken away legally from his faction. He challenged the new government of the Sena breakaway Eknath Shinde group and the Bharatiya Janata Party to hold a mid-term Assembly poll to see which is the real Sena.

Thackeray addressed a media conference on Friday after reports emerged that he had asked his cadre to prepare for the elections without the party’s election symbol, that has been winning it municipal polls, and seats in the Assembly and Lok Sabha. The Sena has made two governments with the BJP in the past, and one with the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party which fell last month after Shinde and 39 other MLAs revolted. Judging by the line to enter the Shinde faction, it is being said that the Chief Minister's faction will soon claim the Sena's official election symbol.