Symbol Battle: Ajit Pawar’s NCP Faction Must Use ‘Clock’ With Disclaimer, Reminds SC

New Delhi: Ahead of next month’s crucial Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) founder Sharad Pawar had approached the Supreme Court over party symbol.

Hearing a petition filed by Pawar-led NCP faction over the use of ‘clock’ symbol, the Supreme Court said on Thursday that the Ajit Pawar-headed faction of NCP must include a disclaimer while using the ‘clock’, as directed by the top court earlier, PTI reported.

The Sharad faction told Supreme Court that the Ajit-led group was not complying with its previous order regarding the use of a disclaimer.

A three-judge bench, headed by Justice Surya Kant, issued a notice to the Maharashtra deputy CM and others while seeking their replies to the plea.

The court directed the Ajit faction to file a fresh undertaking over its March 19 and April 4 directions to issue a public notice saying ‘NCP’s clock symbol is sub-judice’, and that it was being meticulously complied with even during the process of state Assembly elections.

“Please file a fresh undertaking that you (Ajit Pawar camp) will not violate our directions till the end of the elections. Don’t create an embarrassing situation for yourselves. If we find there is a deliberate attempt to violate our order, we can initiate suo motu contempt,” the bench told the Ajit faction, according to India Today.

The top court had, on March 19, allowed the Ajit faction to keep the NCP name and ‘clock’ symbol, though with a caveat that the deputy CM’s party will publish public notices in leading English, Marathi and Hindi dailies, informing the public that the allocation of the ‘clock’ symbol is subject to the outcome of the petition being heard by the court.

NCP split vertically into two groups in July 2023, with uncle Sharad and nephew Ajit leading one faction each.

NCP was co-founded by Sharad and P A Sangma in June 1999, after the duo – along with Tariq Anwar – was expelled from the Congress for seeking a Prime Minister candidate other than Italy-born Sonia Gandhi.