Who Keeps the Party Symbol When an Indian Party Splits?

When a political party in India cracks in two, the loudest fight is rarely about ideology or leadership. It is about a small picture — the party symbol printed next to a candidate's name on the ballot. Lose the bow and arrow or the clock, and a party that took decades to build can feel like a stranger to its own voters overnight. So who actually gets to keep it?

The answer sits with an authority most people associate only with conducting polls: the Election Commission of India (ECI). Not the Supreme Court, not Parliament, and certainly not whoever shouts the loudest on television. The recent splits in the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) turned this once-obscure procedure into prime-time drama, and it is worth understanding exactly how the call is made.

Why a symbol matters more than a name

In a country where lakhs of voters still recognise a party by its picture before its name, the symbol is not decoration. It is identity, brand and shorthand all at once. A first-time voter in a village may not read the candidate list closely, but a hand, a lotus or a cycle is instantly familiar.

That recognition is built over years of rallies, posters and elections. When a party divides, both factions claim to be the 'real' inheritor of that legacy — and both want the symbol that carries it. Whoever wins the symbol effectively wins the right to tell voters: we are the original, the other side is the breakaway.

This is also why losing leaders fight so hard even after losing the legislature. The symbol travels to every constituency for free. Rebuilding recognition for a brand-new mark can take several election cycles, and in that gap, votes leak.

The rulebook: Paragraph 15 of the Symbols Order

The entire dispute is governed by one provision — Paragraph 15 of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968. It empowers the Election Commission to decide which of the rival groups is the party, or whether neither is, whenever there are competing claims to the same name and symbol.

The Commission's decision under this rule is binding on all factions. It functions as a quasi-judicial body here: it hears both sides, examines documents and affidavits, and passes a reasoned order. That order can be challenged in the higher courts later, but until then it holds.

Crucially, the ECI is not deciding who is morally right or who founded the party. It is deciding a narrow, almost clerical question: which group can demonstrate that it commands the party.

The Sadiq Ali test and how it has shifted

The modern template comes from the 1971 Sadiq Ali case, decided after the Congress split during Indira Gandhi's rise. The Supreme Court upheld a three-pronged approach the Commission could use:

1. The aims and objects of the party as set out in its constitution.
2. The party's own constitution and what it says about its structure and leadership.
3. The majority test — support within the legislative wing (MPs and MLAs) and the organisational wing (office-bearers and delegates).

In theory all three matter. In practice, the first two tests almost always end in a stalemate, because both factions wave the same party constitution and swear loyalty to the same founder. So the Commission has come to lean overwhelmingly on the third — cold arithmetic.

That means the faction that can produce more affidavits from elected representatives and party functionaries usually wins. The leader who built the party can find themselves outvoted by the very people they promoted, because what counts on paper is the headcount, not the history.

What happens while the case drags on

These disputes are not settled overnight, and elections do not wait. To stop both groups from using the same symbol and confusing voters, the Commission typically freezes the original symbol for the duration of the dispute.

With the symbol locked away, the ECI then allots each faction a temporary arrangement so they can still contest the next election:

• A distinct interim name for each group, usually built around the original.
• A free symbol picked from the Commission's list of unreserved marks.

This is exactly what played out before the Maharashtra contests. Both factions had to learn entirely new symbols and teach them to their voters at short notice, which is no small task in a state with crores of electors.

Shiv Sena and NCP: the rulebook in action

The Shiv Sena case set the recent precedent. After the party broke in 2022, the Election Commission in February 2023 handed the original 'bow and arrow' to the faction led by Eknath Shinde, citing its majority among MLAs and MPs. The group led by Uddhav Thackeray was given the name Shiv Sena (UBT) and a new symbol, the flaming torch (mashaal).

The NCP followed a strikingly similar arc. In February 2024, the Commission awarded the party's 'clock' symbol to the faction led by Ajit Pawar, again on the strength of legislative numbers. The group led by party founder Sharad Pawar was allotted a new symbol — a man blowing a turha (tutari), a traditional trumpet — and the name NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar).

Both outcomes underline the same lesson. Founders and emotional ownership counted for little once the rival camp produced the bigger pile of affidavits. The numbers spoke, and the Commission listened to the numbers.

Where the anti-defection law fits in — and where it doesn't

Many readers assume the anti-defection law should automatically punish the breakaway group. It is not that simple. The Tenth Schedule deals with whether individual legislators lose their seats for defecting; the symbol dispute is a separate question of which organisation is the party.

The two tracks can even point in opposite directions. A faction might be facing disqualification petitions before the Speaker while simultaneously winning the symbol from the Election Commission, because each forum is answering a different question. Disqualification is about a member's seat; the Symbols Order is about the party's brand.

That split is part of why these battles feel so messy. One body counts MLAs to decide the party, another decides whether some of those MLAs should even remain MLAs, and the cases move at different speeds.

What a voter and a party worker should take away

If there is a practical lesson here, it is this: in India, a political party is, in legal terms, whoever can prove they hold the majority of its elected and organisational strength. Sentiment, seniority and who-founded-what are arguments, not decisions.

For an ordinary voter, the freeze period is the trap to watch. When a familiar symbol vanishes and two near-identical names appear on the ballot, mistakes are easy. The safest move is to check the exact name and the new symbol of the candidate you intend to back before pressing the button.

And for the parties themselves, the deeper takeaway is uncomfortable. The symbol you spent decades making famous can change hands in a single afternoon at the Commission — not because your story changed, but because your arithmetic did.