Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) founder Sharad Pawar has urged the Supreme Court to direct nephew and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar to apply for a new party symbol for his faction ahead of the State Assembly elections.
The elder Pawar said the undivided NCP’s traditional ‘clock’ symbol had been synonymous with him for the past 25 years. The electorate identify the ‘clock’ with him, he argued.
Following the split in the NCP and the Election Commission’s declaration that the Ajit Pawar camp was the ‘real’ NCP, the dispute over the ‘clock’ had reached the Supreme Court. The court had in a March 19 order allowed Mr. Ajit Pawar to continue to use the ‘clock’ till the final outcome of the pending proceedings.
Consequently, the NCP patriarch had to fight the Lok Sabha polls on a temporary party symbol of the ‘man blowing turha’.
In his application, the elder Pawar accused Mr. Ajit Pawar, represented by advocate Abhikalp Pratap Singh, of misleading voters ahead of the Vidhan Sabha polls. He said the latter was creating “immense confusion and dilemma with respect to who represents the NCP” and trying to squeeze some leverage out of it.
He requested the court to intervene to direct Mr. Ajit Pawar to apply for a new symbol for the Vidhan Sabha polls in order to “ensure fairness and a level playing field by omitting any confusion in the minds of the electorate in relation to the ‘clock’ symbol reserved for the Nationalist Congress Party and the 25 year-long synonymity of the petitioner [Sharad Pawar] with it as its National President”.
The application, filed through advocate Abhishek Jebaraj, said the step was necessary to rule out the possibility of respondent [Mr. Ajit Pawar] or any other bad faith actors intending to leverage upon the existing and apparent confusion in the minds of the people.
It would also confirm the “fair and proper participation of the petitioner in the Maharashtra polls.
“In appreciation of the fact that the degree of confusion amongst the voters was prevalent in the recently concluded parliamentary elections, the confusion would potentially be greater in the upcoming Vidhan Sabha elections due to the relatively smaller size of the constituencies. Moreover, the degree of confusion is directly proportional to the impact on the electorate and hence possesses a greater propensity in disrupting the conduct of free and fair elections,” the application reasoned.
Published - October 02, 2024 07:19 pm IST
