After Shinde's Sena, Ajit Pawar ruled to be the 'real' NCP by Maharashtra assembly speaker

Maharashtra assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar on Thursday ruled that NCP's Ajit Pawar faction is the real Nationalist Congress Party.
"The NCP constitution and the leadership structure of the party does not provide any clue to decide which is the real faction, hence, I have gone by the third yardstick which is legislative majority to decide the issue," Narwekar said. "The Sharad Pawar faction hasn't challenged the claim of legislative majority enjoyed by the Sharad Pawar faction," he added.

The Sharad Pawar faction has not been able to show that they have a majority in the national executive, said Narwekar. Ajit Pawar has numerical strength in the legislative assembly, he said.


"All the petitions seeking disqualification of MLAs are rejected," Narwekar further said. Narwekar started reading out his ruling on disqualification petitions filed by the warring factions led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and his uncle Sharad Pawar.

"Misuse of the 10th schedule by political parties is apparent and it is to suppress dissent within the political party; an attempt to stretch the 10th schedule, this is harm to electoral democracy itself," the Maha assembly speaker said. The provisions of the 10th schedule should not be used to browbeat or silence members within the party, he added.

Narwekar said, it was just an internal party dissent and the party was divided between two leaders Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar, going against decision of Sharad Pawar and his wishes is only dissent and it cannot amount to leaving the political party.

The Election Commission (EC) last week had recognised the faction led by Ajit Pawar, as the real NCP, giving it control over the party name and ‘clock’ symbol.

In its final order sent to both sides, the EC had said it had relied on the test of majority in the party’s legislative wing to decide the dispute, which arose in July last year. According to the order, the total number of MPs, MLAs and MLCs of the NCP was 81, of which 57 had supported Ajit Pawar and 28 had supported Sharad Pawar. But, five MLAs and one Lok Sabha MP had submitted affidavits supporting both sides. Even if these six were excluded, Ajit Pawar’s faction had the majority support, it had said.

The NCP split in July last year after Ajit Pawar and eight MLAs joined the Eknath Shinde government against the wishes of party founder Sharad Pawar.

The faction led by Sharad Pawar had filed a plea seeking disqualification of Ajit Pawar and the eight MLAs.

The top court had on October 30 last year directed the speaker to decide the petition of Jayant Patil of the Sharad Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) seeking disqualification of the nine MLAs of the Ajit Pawar group by January 31.

(With TOI inputs)