Speaker Rahul Narwekar of the Maharashtra Assembly ruled on Thursday that the Ajit Pawar-led group was the real Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) when two factions emerged in July 2023. He also dismissed disqualification petitions filed by both the Ajit and Sharad Pawar-led factions.
“All the petitions seeking disqualification of MLAs are rejected,” Narwekar said, reading out the ruling at the legislature complex in Mumbai. The disqualification petitions were filed by the rival factions led by Sharad Pawar and his nephew Ajit Pawar after Ajit Pawar joined the Shiv Sena-BJP government in Maharashtra in July 2023 along with his followers, and was sworn in as deputy Chief Minister.
Narwekar stated that questioning party founder Sharad Pawar’s decisions or defying his wishes did not amount to defection but it was only internal dissent. He added that the tenth schedule of the Constitution, which deals with anti-defection provisions, was misused in this case. The ruling also mentioned that party leadership cannot use the tenth schedule to stifle dissent of a large number of members by threatening to disqualify them. The events that unfolded in the NCP in July 2023 were clearly in the nature of intraparty dissent, according to the ruling.
The Ajit Pawar faction had “overwhelming” legislative majority when the party split, the Speaker noted. Decisions of the Ajit Pawar faction constituted the `will of the NCP political party’, he said. Narwekar’s ruling followed the decision of the Election Commission last week to hold the Ajit Pawar-led party to be the real NCP. Reacting to the Speaker’s decision, Supriya Sule, MP of the NCP – Sharadchandra Pawar party, said it was a “copy-paste” of Narwekar’s earlier decision in the Shiv Sena disqualification case.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from PTI)