Sharad Pawar moves SC against EC order on party name, symbol
The appeal was filed on Monday by advocate Abhishek Jebaraj against the poll watchdog’s February 6 order.
New Delhi: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) founder Sharad Pawar has approached the Supreme Court, challenging an Election Commission of India order that gave the party name and symbol to the NCP faction led by his nephew Ajit Pawar and recognised it as the “real” NCP based on its numerical strength in the state legislature.
The appeal was filed on Monday by advocate Abhishek Jebaraj against the poll watchdog’s February 6 order. The poll panel allowed the Sharad Pawar faction to be called the “Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar” for the purposes of voting in the upcoming elections to six Rajya Sabha seats from Maharashtra.
Days after the decision by the Election Commission (EC), the Ajit Pawar faction filed a caveat in the top court to ensure that no order is passed by the top court without hearing it.
The appeal, which is likely to be mentioned in the coming days for urgent hearing, has questioned the basis on which the poll panel arrived at its decision to rule in favour of Ajit Pawar, who joined hands with the Shiv Sena faction led by Eknath Shinde and the Bharatiya Janata Party, and became a part of the state government as deputy chief minister.
In its order, EC said: “The commission holds 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 Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) order, 1968.”
The commission relied on the test of majority to arrive at this conclusion. Though the Sharad Pawar faction presented the constitution and organisational setup of the party to stake claim for being the majority, the poll panel went by the affidavits of support submitted by party MPs, MLAs and MLCs to rule that the Ajit Pawar faction enjoyed a considerable majority in the legislative assembly.
“The commission examined the affidavits of support filed by both the factions and concluded that the group led by the petitioner (Ajit Pawar) enjoyed majority support among the legislators,” said the panel comprising chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar and election commissioners Anup Chandra Pandey and Arun Goel.
Out of the 81 MPs, MLAs and MLCs belonging to NCP, 57 affidavits were filed in support of the petitioner and only 28 in favour of party patriarch Sharad Pawar. Among these, six affidavits (five MLAs and one MP) supported both factions. Even if these affidavits were to be excluded, the Ajit faction had the support of 51 legislators, the commission noted.
The poll panel discarded the evidence produced by Sharad Pawar, stating that the constitution of both the NCP working committee and national committee were “shrouded with doubts” due to the disputed organisational elections held in 2022.
