Veteran political leader Sharad Pawar, embroiled in a battle with his nephew Ajit Pawar for the name and symbol of the party he founded, has lost.
Much like the way the Sena versus Sena battle played out, the Election Commission has awarded both to the faction of the Nationalist Congress Party led by Ajit Pawar. It also means the Ajit Pawar faction will have control of the party’s assets and ban accounts, which might put the other faction under heavy financial constraints.
Sources said the Commission’s decision was based on numerical strength of the factions. The faction led by Ajit Pawar had the bigger chunk of NCP’s 53 MLAs in the Maharashtra Assembly.
Sharad Pawar has been asked to choose a name for his faction in view of the coming Rajya Sabha elections. They have been asked to convey the name and symbol of their faction to the poll body by 3 pm on February 7.
Only 12 of the party’s 53 MLAs have been supporting Sharad Pawar since the battle for control of the party broke out last year.
Forty-one MLAs are with Ajit Pawar, who joined hands with the BJP-Eknath Shinde alliance in July last year in a very public split that came as a huge loss of face for his 83-year-old uncle.
The junior Pawar’s move came after multiple attempts at acquiring power, which had not paid off earlier. In 2019, he along with a handful of MLAs had supported the aborted bid of the BJP led by Devendra Fadnavis, to form government. Since the split, Ajit Pawar has made multiple remarks about how his uncle should have stepped down from the party’s top post in time.
“The whole world knows who founded the NCP… So what the Election Commission did despite that is the murder of democracy by the election commission,” said Anil Desmukh, a senior leader of the Sharad Pawar faction.
In February last year, the Election Commission had awarded the name and party symbol of Shiv Sena – the party founded by Uddhav Thackeray’s father Bal Thackeray – to the faction led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
Mr Desmukh cited yesterday’s Supreme Court observation that called the Mayoral election in Chandigarh the “murder of democracy”. “The very same thing is happening in Maharashtra today,” he added.
Sharad Pawar ally Shiv Sena brushed off the Election Commission decision, saying it has opened the door of the Supreme Court”. The Sena’s own petition about the name and party symbol is pending at the top court.
Ajit Pawar said he accepts this decision “with humility”.