The Aryavarth Express
Agency(Maharashtra): The Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Speaker, Rahul Narwekar, has made a decisive ruling in the internal conflict within the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), declaring the faction led by Ajit Pawar as the legitimate representation of the party. This judgment came after rival NCP factions sought the disqualification of each other’s MLAs following a split in the party in July 2023.
Speaker Narwekar dismissed all petitions calling for MLA disqualifications, stating that internal disagreements and questioning the decisions of the party’s founder, Sharad Pawar, do not constitute defection but merely internal dissent. He criticized the misuse of the tenth schedule of the Constitution, which deals with defection, suggesting it should not be employed to suppress dissent among a large number of party members under the threat of disqualification.
Highlighting that the Ajit Pawar faction held an “overwhelming” legislative majority at the time of the split, the Speaker declared that the 41 MLAs who sided with this group could not be disqualified as they represented the party’s will.
This ruling aligns with the Election Commission’s decision from the previous week, which recognized Ajit Pawar’s faction as the ‘real NCP’ and awarded them the party’s name and ‘wall clock’ symbol. In contrast, the Sharad Pawar camp was allotted a new name—Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar—in anticipation of the upcoming Rajya Sabha election.
Ajit Pawar had led a major portion of the NCP MLAs last year, aligning with the BJP-Shiv Sena government headed by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde in Maharashtra, a move that now appears to have consolidated his position within the political landscape of the state.