New Delhi: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) founder Sharad Pawar has approached the Supreme Court challenging an Election Commission of India order giving the party’s name and emblem to the party led by his nephew Ajit Pawar Nationalist Party (NCP) faction and recognizes it as the “real” Nationalist Party (NCP). Its numerical strength in state legislatures.
Advocate Abhishek Jebaraj on Monday filed an appeal against the poll regulator’s February 6 order. Poll panel allows Sharad Pawar faction, dubbed ‘Nationalist Congress-Sharadchandra Pawar’, to vote for six candidates from Maharashtra in upcoming elections Federal House seats.
Days after the Election Commission (EC) decision, Ajit Pawar’s faction approached the Supreme Court to ensure that it does not pass any order without hearing it.
The appeal, which is likely to be mentioned at an emergency hearing in the coming days, challenges the basis of the poll panel’s decision in favor of Ajit Pawar, who has been elected against Eknath Singh The Shiv Sena faction led by De joined forces with the Bharatiya Janata Party and became part of the state government as deputy chief minister.
“The Commission is of the view that the faction led by the petitioner Ajit Anantrao Pawar is the NCP and is entitled to use its name and reserved symbol ‘clock’ for the purposes of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968,” the EC said in its order.
The committee relied on a majority of tests to reach this conclusion. While the Sharad Pawar faction brought forward the party’s constitution and organizational set-up to claim majority, the poll panel ruled against Ajith on the basis of supporting affidavits submitted by the party’s MPs, MLAs and MLCs. Ajit Pawar’s faction enjoys a sizeable majority in the Legislative Assembly.
The committee consists of Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, Election Commissioners Anup Chandra Pandey and Arun Goel.
Of the 81 MPs, MLAs and MLCs belonging to the NCP, 57 affidavits were submitted in support of the petitioners and only 28 in favor of party leader Sharad Pawar. Of these, six affidavits (five MLAs and one MP) supported both factions. The committee noted that even excluding these affidavits, the Ajit faction had the support of 51 legislators.
The poll panel dismissed the evidence given by Sharad Pawar saying that the constitution of both the NCP working committee and the national committee was “shrouded in doubt” due to the contentious organizational elections to be held in 2022.