Veteran leader Sharad Pawar on Sunday came down heavily on the Election Commission’s decision to allot the name and symbol of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to the faction led by his nephew Ajit Pawar and said the poll body’s ruling was “surprising”.
“The Election Commission snatched the party from the hands of those who founded and built it and gave it to others. Such a thing has never happened before,” Pawar said.
“I am confident that people will not support the Election Commission’s ruling, against which we have approached the Supreme Court,” he further said.
The Commission had earlier this week declared that the faction led by Ajit was the “real NCP” and allotted them the party’s original name and the ‘wall clock’ symbol—a ruling that came as a major setback to Pawar who founded the party in 1999.
The commission also allotted a new name—Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar—to the Pawar camp in view of the upcoming Rajya Sabha election.
The Pawar group has already approached the Supreme Court against the Election Commission’s ruling.
The NCP suffered a vertical split after Ajit walked away with a majority of party MLAs in July last year and supported the BJP-Shiv Sena government led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde in Maharashtra.
