The Supreme Court has said that it will hear on October 24 the petition by Sharad Pawar-led NCP objecting to the use of ‘clock’ election symbol by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Has been expressed. The matter was directed to be listed immediately before the bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Ujjwal Bhuiyan. On Tuesday, the counsel appearing for the Sharad Pawar faction informed the bench that the matter was to be listed on October 22 itself, but it was not mentioned in the cause list. After this, the bench directed to list it for hearing on October 24.
Sharad faction’s lawyer said that in the petition, a request has been made to direct both the NCP factions not to use the ‘clock’ election symbol. “We had earlier passed a detailed order on this issue…it was a kind of consent order,” the bench said. On this, the lawyer of Sharad Pawar group claimed that the Ajit Pawar led group is not following the order of the apex court. He said that the matter needs to be heard urgently as the last date for filing nominations for Maharashtra Assembly elections is October 29.
The lawyer representing the Ajit Pawar faction said that some candidates of the party have already filed nomination for the assembly elections. He alleged that the rival group has filed this petition to capture the ‘clock’ election symbol. The bench said it would hear the matter on October 24. The bench has asked Ajit’s group to reply by then. In fact, Sharad Pawar has moved the apex court against the Election Commission’s February 6 order, under which the Ajit Pawar-led faction was recognized as the real NCP.
The Commission had also allotted NCP’s ‘clock’ election symbol to the Ajit Pawar-led faction. On March 19, the apex court had allowed the Sharad Pawar faction to use Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) as its name and allotted it the election symbol ‘man blowing trumpet’. After this, the Supreme Court had passed an order on the petition of Sharad Pawar faction, in which it was requested to stop Ajit Pawar faction from using the ‘clock’ symbol in the elections. The top court had said that the Ajit Pawar group will not be able to use Sharad Pawar’s name and picture for political gains.
Sharad Pawar had founded NCP in 1999 with former Lok Sabha Speaker Purno Sangma and Tariq Anwar after his expulsion from the Congress. In July 2023, Ajit Pawar rebelled in the NCP and along with most of the party’s MLAs joined the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led BJP-Shiv Sena government.
