In another setback to the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party, Maharashtra Speaker Rahul Narwekar on Thursday declared the Ajit Pawar-led faction as the "real NCP", while dismissing pleas seeking disqualification of the MLAs belonging to both the factions.

Close on the heels of the Election Commission’s February 6 2024 order recognising the Ajit Pawar-led faction as the “real NCP”, giving it control over the party’s name and “clock” symbol, the Speaker ruled that between the two feuding factions, the Ajit Pawar faction enjoyed “overwhelming majority”.

Narwekar, however, did not disqualify any of the 54 MLAs of the erstwhile undivided NCP. “All the petitions seeking disqualification of MLAs (filed by both sides against each other) stand rejected," the Speaker ruled.

“The Ajit Pawar faction enjoyed an overwhelming majority when the split happened… That this faction had the support of 41 out of 53 MLAs is not disputed, and numbers-wise, this faction outnumbered the Sharad Pawar faction in terms of MLAs. The number of disqualification petitions filed showed the strength of the two factions,” the Speaker said.

“It is clear that on 30 June, 2023, two factions of the NCP emerged.  However, prior to joining the government, the Ajit Pawar faction outnumbered the Sharad Pawar  faction in terms of numbers of MLAs and MLCs. Two parallel party presidents and party structure existed before 2 July, 2023 when Ajit Pawar became a part of the government,” the Speaker said.

"The NCP constitution and the leadership structure of the provide any clue to decide as to which is the real faction and hence I went by the yardstick of legislative majority,” he said, while declaring that the faction led  Ajit Pawar was the “real NCP party” ad it enjoyed an “overwhelming majority” within the NCP.

In his reasoning for not disqualifying MLAs belonging to both the NCP factions, the Speaker said the provision of the Tenth Schedule of Constitution, which deals with the disqualification of legislators on grounds of defection, should not be used to silence the members or to crush the opposition within the party.

The Speaker’s ruling is akin to the one he gave on 10 January in the case of the Shiv Sena, when he had ruled that the Shiv Sena-led by Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde  was the “real Shiv Sena” and not the one headed by former chief minister and Shiv Sena (UBT) head  Uddhav Thackeray.

It may be recalled that on July 2, 2023, senior NCP leader and then leader of the Opposition in Maharashtra Ajit Pawar rebelled against his uncle and his party chief Sharad Pawar, walked out of the party with a sizeable number of supporters and took oath as deputy chief minister in the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena-BJP alliance government in the state.

Initially, the Sharad Pawar faction filed its disqualification petitions against nine MLAs of the Ajit Pawar faction – who became ministers in the government of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

Later on it filed the petitions seeking disqualification of the remaining 31 MLAs of the breakaway group.

The Ajit Pawar faction also filed its own petitions against 10 MLAs of the Sharad Pawar group.

On his part, the Speaker today dismissed all the petitions by both factions, recognised the Ajit Pawar faction as the “real; NCP”  and ruled that none of the MLAs of any side stood disqualified.

Meanwhile, the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, which was recently given the temporary name of ‘NCP-Sharadchandra Pawar’, has challenged the EC’s order recognising the Ajit Pawar-led faction as the “real NCP”, giving it control over the party’s name and “clock” symbol,

The Speaker’s ruling came in for a severe flak from the NCP (Sharad Pawar) and the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) leaders like Nana Patole, Dr. Jitendra Awhad, Eknath Khadse, Aditya Thackeray and Sanjay Raut, even as the Ajit Pawar-led NCP  celebrated the Speaker's ruling at its offices across the state.

On his part, NCP President Ajit Pawar declined to comment on the Speaker's ruling saying that he had not read the order , while his other party colleagues including Chief Whip Anil Patil welcomed the order.