SC to look into urgent hearing of Sharad Pawar's plea against EC order on real NCP
The faction of veteran politician and NCP leader, Sharad Pawar, on Friday sought an urgent hearing before the Supreme Court challenging the decision of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to recognize the Ajit Pawar faction as the real NCP.
Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the Sharad Pawar led faction, on Friday mentioned the matter before the apex court for urgent listing in the case. He said, because of the poll panel order, Sharad Pawar is likely to face the whip of Ajit Pawar in the Maharashtra Assembly session which is going to start on February 20.
“This is a matter of extreme urgency. Because of the Election Commission order, Sharad Pawar will be subject to the whip of Ajit Pawar. The session in Maharashtra starts next week. We have not been given any symbol at all,” Singhvi said and pleaded to it seeking listing of the case on February 19.
The three-judge bench of the top court, led by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud, and also comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, said it would look into the urgent listing of the case.
“Let me see. We will list it,” said the bench. It, however, did not fix any date to hear the matter.
The Sharad Pawar-led faction on Monday had knocked the doors of the Supreme Court challenging the decision of the ECI to recognize the Ajit Pawar faction as the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
In its petition filed before the top court, it challenged the handing over of the clock symbol to Ajit Pawar faction, along with other prayers.
In earlier developments in the case, the Ajit Pawar faction had already filed a caveat on February 7 in the top court, anticipating that the Sharad Pawar faction might appeal and move against the EC order giving the former control over the name and symbol of the party.
Ajit Pawar, in his application filed before the apex court, said that the SC should not pass any order without hearing his side.
The EC in its order last week on February 6 ruled that the Ajit Pawar faction is the real NCP (Nationalist Congress Party) and gave the clock symbol to it.
The EC applied the test of majority in the legislative wing to determine which of the two factions can claim to be the real NCP.
The poll body noted that the total number of NCP MLAs in the Maharashtra assembly stood at 81. Of this, Ajit Pawar submitted affidavits of 57 MLAs in his support while Sharad Pawar had only 28 affidavits.
In view of this, the commission concluded that the group led by Ajit Pawar enjoyed majority support of the legislators and can lay claim to being the NCP.
The NCP was formed in June 1999 by Sharad Pawar, P. A. Sangma and Tariq Anwar after they were expelled from the Indian National Congress in May 1999 for disputing the right of Italian-born Sonia Gandhi to lead the party.