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After the meeting with the Election Commission, Ajit Pawar faction's counsel, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi on Monday said that the Sharad Pawar faction is delaying the hearing over the staking of claims on the party's name and symbol following a split in July this year.
"They (Sharad Pawar faction) were delaying it, Election Commission ultimately said Friday...We hope their hearing will end on Friday and our side will resume on Tuesday. They sought time for two more days and EC granted it; we opposed it because they're just delaying," Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi said. The last hearing was conducted a week ago by the ECI which adjourned it after listening to both sides. The Ajit Pawar faction had approached the Commission in July staking claim over the NCP name and symbol stating that he should be declared the party's president. On Monday, Congress leader and Sharad Pawar faction's counsel, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, said that the Ajit Pawar side of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had filed an affidavit on October 26 saying that Pratap Singh Chowdhury supports Ajit Pawar, while the former was shocked and later filed an affidavit saying he knows nothing about it. "On October 26 under the nose of the commission, the other side filed an affidavit saying this man supports Ajit Pawar. He was shocked. He has filed an affidavit saying I know nothing about this, I never supported Ajit Pawar against Sharad Pawar, and I am a strong supporter of Sharad Pawar. The poor man comes to the Election Commission, files an affidavit," Singhvi said while speaking to reporters about the veteran NCP leader. "They are making a fool of themselves. He is a founder-member along with Sharad Pawar. He is an NCP person at the national level. They have no shame...," Singhvi said in an attack on the Ajit Pawar faction. Speaking about the proceedings before the Election Commission, Singhvi said, "We have shown that the Election Commission has the jurisdiction and should file a criminal complaint for such open forgery and fraud, which is their power under the IPC. And we have requested them to consider filing that." Blasting the Ajit Pawar section of the NCP for splitting up from the parent party, the Congress leader said, "This is nothing but an afterthought. It is a non-maintainable, false, frivolous, and vexatious petition. It should be dismissed at the threshold with cost against these people." Later, the Election Commission wrote to both factions of the party acknowledging the split and also directed both Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar to share documents submitted to the polling body with each other. Ajit Pawar had filed the petition before the ECI on June 30, and while he was sworn in as deputy chief minister on July 2, his notice reached the ECI office on July 5. Ajit Pawar had submitted the petition along with affidavits of MPs, MLAs, and MLCs to support his claim. (ANI)
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