KOLKATA: The Election Commission of India is slated to hear the Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) plea regarding which faction — Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar — can stake their claim over the party name and symbol, on Monday.
The hearing ensued when the Ajit faction submitted a petition before the ECI claiming presidency of the party. However, the faction led by Sharad questioned how the party came into existence, saying, “People are with the man who stood by the NCP as a pillar and that is Sharad Pawar.”
Both factions have now demanded the allotment of the party name and symbol for themselves, laying a claim on the symbol of the blue analogue alarm clock with two legs placed on the tricolour.
Both Senior and Junior Pawar have submitted multiple documents to the commission claiming leverage on their demand for the party name and symbol. Senior Pawar’s faction mooted the documents submitted by their rivals, claiming that they were “fake and fabricated”. These allegations were, however, dismissed by NCP president Sunil Tatkare from Junior Pawar’s faction.
The Election Commission had written to both the factions earlier that it had acknowledged their split and had also directed both of them to share the respective documents with the polling body and with each other. It had also issued a show-cause notice to the the Sharad Pawar faction following a petition filed by Ajit’s faction, claiming that Ajit should be declared NCP president and be allotted the party’s symbol according to the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968.
The situation emerged following a split in the party as Ajit’s faction merged with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government with Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena. The first hearing of NCP vs NCP was scheduled on October 6.