Sharad Pawar expresses confidence about his camp gaining party name, election symbol
NCP President Sharad Pawar at a press conference in Pune on July 2. File pic
In a repeat of the Shiv Sena dispute, which it decided earlier this year, the Election Commission of India will hear the two warring factions of the Nationalist Congress Party on Friday.
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A day before the hearing, Sharad Pawar exuded confidence that his camp would get the party symbol and the name. The Ajit Pawar-led faction has challenged Sharad Pawar’s appointment as the national president. It has told the commission that Ajit Pawar was their national president.
It was learnt that the Sharad Pawar faction has submitted some 9,000 affidavits in support of its leader. The faction is expected to ask the Election Commission why it had decided to hear the split though it has been conveyed that the party was still intact and only a few have left it. The uncle’s faction has maintained that the organisation was with it.
Speaking in New Delhi at the party’s executive committee meeting on Friday, Sharad Pawar told the audience that his camp would get the election symbol of the clock and the party’s name because it has the right to use it. “You (the Ajit Pawar faction leaders) had signed the papers supporting my election,” he said.
He added that the people knew for whom to vote. “There is nothing to worry about. The country is changing,” he said, adding that the BJP was misusing enforcement agencies against the Opposition leaders.
In a barb at the ruling party, he said that the BJP should change its election symbol from the lotus to the washing machine because it has joined hands with the leaders against whom it had levelled serious allegations. On the other hand, the Ajit Pawar faction has been claiming that it will win the case simply because it has a larger number of MLAs and MPs than its rival.
In a similar manner, the Shinde fashion of Shiv Sena was allotted the original party’s name and election symbol because it had more MLAs and MPs than the other group, led by Uddhav Thackeray. Their case is now pending before the speaker of the Assembly.
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