Mumbai: A day after India’s Election Commission (EC) ruled that rebel Ajit Pawar’s breakaway group is the ‘real Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)’, the poll panel approved a new name for veteran Sharad Pawar’s faction.
NCP, which had been founded by Pawar and others 24 years ago, will be known as ‘Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar’.
The Pawar faction was on Tuesday asked to submit potential names for his political group after EC not only granted Pawar’s nephew Ajit and his faction real NCP status but also allotted them the original party symbol of clock.
Pawar’s faction had proposed Sharad Pawar Congress, Mi Rashtrawadi and Sharad Swabhimani as possible names with tea cup, sunflower and rising sun as symbols, according to an India Today report quoting sources.
Ajit broke ranks last July, walking away with a majority of NCP MLAs and supported the BJP-Shiv Sena Maharashtra government helmed by another rebel (of Shiv Sena) Eknath Shinde.
Pawar’s camp has termed EC’s decision a ‘murder of democracy’ and vowed to approach the Supreme Court.
