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Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to hear the dispute over the use of election symbols between the Ajit Pawar faction of the National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sharad Pawar faction of NCP on October 1
A bench of Justices Surya Kant, Dipankar Datta and Ujjal Bhuyan posted the matter for hearing for October 1 after the counsel for Sharad Pawar NCP faction mentioned that urgent relief is being sought in view of upcoming Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha elections and court vacations. Sharad Pawar's counsel claimed that even yesterday Ajit Pawar said that Sharad Pawar is "his God" and they are "all together". The counsel said that Ajit Pawar's faction is not complying with the court's previous order and sought direction that Ajit Pawar's faction be directed to apply for a fresh symbol for the Vidhan Sabha elections. Earlier, Sharad Pawar group had filed a petition in the apex court challenging the February 6 decision of the Election Commission to officially recognise the Ajit Pawar group as the real NCP and allot the party symbol 'clock' to them. On March 19, the top court allowed the Ajit Pawar faction to use the 'clock' symbol, with certain conditions, including that his party will public declaration that the use of the 'clock' symbol by it for the Lok Sabha and the Maharashtra Assembly Elections is sub-judice and subject to the outcome of the challenge made by the Sharad Pawar group to the decision of the ECI. It had also asked the Ajit Pawar faction to not use the name and images of Sharad Pawar in its campaign materials. Maharashtra legislative assembly elections will be held in 288 constituencies. The Election Commission of India has yet to announce the dates for the election. The upcoming Maharashtra election will see a contest between the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition, comprising the UBT Shiv Sena, NCP (Sharad Pawar faction), and Congress, and the Maha Yuti Alliance, which includes the BJP, Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction), and NCP (Ajit Pawar faction). (ANI)
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