‘NCP appointments unconstitutional… means electoral majority criteria to decide who gets party, symbol’: Praful Patel

Patel was addressing a press conference along with Ajit Pawar group’s state party president and Lok Sabha MP Sunil Tatkare. At the event, all the seven NCP MLAs from Nagaland along with the party state chief, women wing and youth wing chief extended support to Ajit Pawar.

Recalling the letter extending support to the NDA’s Nagaland government, written in March, Patel said that, that was the time when the NCP had joined the NDA.

Following the rebellion by Ajit Pawar against his uncle and NCP chief Sharad Pawar on July 2, the former has staked claim on the party name and symbol. The rebel group has claimed in front of the Election Commission of India (ECI) that on June 30, Ajit was made the chief of the party, replacing Sharad Pawar. The ECI is set to hear the arguments of both sides on October 6.

Prior to these arguments, the Ajit group is attempting to make a claim that only a majority in electoral representation is sufficient to stake claim on the party since the organisational appointments are unconstitutional. Meanwhile, both groups have filed disqualification petitions against the MLAs of each side.

The Rajya Sabha MP stressed that the party never had internal elections as mandated by the party constitution. “The presidents, including Jayant Patil, have been nominated and not elected. Organisational appointments need to be through election. We have no such records of internal elections. Since we did not have elections, the selection of delegates (to party conference) is also questionable. Therefore, those delegates choosing anyone are under scanner. The decision on who the party belongs to has to be through elected representatives as there are no internal elections to choose office-bearers,” he said.

The Ajit group stressed that the present case is different from the one of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Shinde after rebelling against former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray staked claim on the party name and symbol and the ECI gave the verdict in his favour.

When asked if the party will contest Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, Patel said that ECI’s order is likely to come within 15-20 days from October 6 and “we can talk about this after that”. “I don’t know what the order would be. But I can surely tell you all that we have studied all the factors of this case and we are confident of winning it,” he said.