Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) faction has filed disqualification petitions against the party’s seven lawmakers in Nagaland and lone legislators in Jharkhand. People aware of the matter said the faction sought action against the eight for shifting loyalties to Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar’s rebel faction.
NCP leader Sharad Pawar. (PTI)
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Disqualification petitions were earlier filed against 45 lawmakers in Maharashtra following the NCP split. “The disqualification petitions [in Nagaland and Jharkhand] have been filed against the MLAs [members of legislative assembly] for indulging in anti-party activities,” said NCP leader Dheeraj Sharma.
The rebel faction of NCP is part of the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party-BJP government in Nagaland. All seven NCP MLAs from Nagaland were in Mumbai and likely to meet Ajit Pawar on Tuesday.
The Ajit Pawar camp has also filed disqualification petitions against 10 NCP Sharad Pawar faction lawmakers in Maharashtra.
On July 2, Ajit Pawar joined Maharashtra’s Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party government and was inducted as a deputy chief minister. His faction elected Ajit Pawar as their new national president. Both factions claim to have support from 24 state units. The Pawar-led faction has filed around 40,000 affidavits of the party workers pledging their support to the party patriarch. The rebel faction has submitted around 60,000 such affidavits.
Faisal Malik is a senior journalist with over two and a half decades of experience covering Maharashtra’s politics, governance and public policy with a deep understanding of the state’s political landscape. He is a Senior Assistant Editor at Hindustan Times and has been associated with its Mumbai edition for more than a decade. Based in Mumbai, Faisal currently covers three major political parties in Maharashtra — Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and NCP (Sharad Pawar). Over the years, he has extensively reported on major political developments, combining investigative insights with in-depth field reporting. His coverage has spanned a wide range of issues, from drought, farmer suicides, major development projects and grassroots challenges to major electoral battles, including three Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly elections — 2014, 2019 and 2024. Before joining Hindustan Times, he worked with ‘The Asian Age’ and ‘Dainik Bhaskar’. An avid tea enthusiast, he enjoys reading history, Urdu literature and classical poetry. When away from the newsroom, he writes Urdu poetry inspired by human emotions, life's experiences, meaningful reflections and relationships. An amateur photographer, Faisal is passionate about capturing moments that often go unnoticed by the naked eye.
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