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Maharashtra Speaker holds Ajit Pawar faction as real NCP, rejects all disqualification pleas
Maharashtra Speaker rejects plea to disqualify MLAs of Ajit Pawar faction
Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar on Thursday dismissed all disqualification petitions filed by both NCP factions and held Ajit Pawar's group as the real Nationalist Congress Party.
"All the petitions seeking disqualification of MLAs are rejected," Narwekar said.
Reading out the ruling on the disqualification petitions filed by the two factions within the NCP against each other, the Speaker said that Ajit Pawar's faction substantially outnumbered the Sharad Pawar faction in the state legislature.
“I hold that the Ajit Pawar faction enjoys an overwhelming majority within the NCP,” Narwekar declared.
The disqualification petitions were filed by the rival factions led by Sharad Pawar and his nephew Ajit Pawar after Ajit Pawar joined the Shiv Sena-BJP government in Maharashtra in July 2023 along with his followers, and was sworn in as deputy Chief Minister.
The Speaker ruled that the actions and statements of Ajit Pawar's faction between June 30 and July 2 last year were not acts of defection but intra-party dissent.
Narwekar said that the provision of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India, which deals with the disqualification of legislators on grounds of defection, should not be used to silence the members or to crush the opposition.
That would be a complete abuse of the law and contrary to the contention of the law, he said.
Earlier this month, the Election Commission of India ruled that the faction led by Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar will inherit the NCP’s name and its clock symbol, dealing a blow to party patriarch Sharad Pawar just months ahead of general elections.
“This commission holds that the faction led by the petitioner, Ajit Anantrao Pawar, is the Nationalist Congress Party (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 140-page order said.
(With inputs from Faisal Malik in Mumbai)
