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Maha political crisis: Rival NCP factions approach EC
Rival factions of India's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have informed the Election Commission of a split in the party following defections to the BJP.
Rival Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) factions have written to the Election Commission of India (ECI) apprising the body of the split in the party, a person aware of the developments said on Tuesday.
On Sunday, senior leader Ajit Pawar and eight other NCP lawmakers joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and took oath as ministers in the Maharashtra government. NCP patriarch Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar have since signed off on a string of tit-for-tat disqualifications and appointments.
“Both camps have informed the commission about the split and the events that led up to it,” the person quoted above said. “The commission has received the letters.”
ECI on Tuesday took cognisance of the letters.
Tit-for-tat expulsions and appointments in both factions have marked the beginning of a bitter battle for control of the party in what is turning out to be a play-by-play repeat of the Shiv Sena split that brought down the Maha Vikas Aghadi government.
In February this year, ECI ruled that the faction of the Sena lead by Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde will inherit the original party’s name and its iconic bow-and-arrow symbol, dealing a major blow to Uddhav Thackeray’s camp.
The 78-page order capped an eight-month-long feud between the two leaders over control of the Sena
ECI followed the procedure laid down in a 1971 Supreme Court judgment, which said such cases must be decided on the basis of a triple test. ECI found that the conclusion of the first two benchmarks were inconclusive. Therefore, ECI relied on the third prong — the test of majority in the legislative wing. Here, the poll body found that 40 of the 55 members of legislative assembly backed the Shinde faction, which translated to 76% of the total votes polled by the unified party in the 2019 assembly elections. Moreover, 13 of the 18 Lok Sabha members of the party backed Shinde, which translated to 73% of the total votes polled in the 2019 general elections.
