Sharad Pawar’s NCP faction gets new name, it’s now Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar

Election Commission allotted the new name a day after it recognised Ajit Pawar faction as the real NCP. New name is only for Rajya Sabha polls this month, the poll body says.

The Sharad Pawar faction lost the NCP name to Ajit Pawar | ANI

Mumbai:  A day after it recognised the Ajit-Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party as the “official” party, the Election Commission of India has approved a new name for the Sharad Pawar faction — the Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar. 

The name was the first of the three options that the Sharad Pawar faction, on EC’s directions, gave the election body. The other two options were the Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadrao Pawar and NCP-Sharad Pawar.

However, the EC also made it clear that the name is a “one-time option for the purposes of forthcoming election to six seats in the Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra”. The election is scheduled to be held on 27 February.

On Tuesday, the EC allotted the NCP name and election symbol —  a clock — to the Ajit Pawar faction citing the “test of legislative majority”.

According to ECI’s order, 41 MLAs from Maharashtra and seven from Nagaland are with Ajit Pawar. Two MPs are also with the faction, the order said.

The Sharad Pawar faction must now pick a symbol.

 “We will think about symbols later. It wasn’t compulsory to give the symbol now,” Jitendra Awhad an MLA from the faction, told ThePrint. “We are happy that we got the name NCP-Sharadchandra Pawar as that was the man who gave birth to the party. Ajit Pawar and company should start calling themselves ‘NCP, Alibaba, and 40 thieves’. Once upon a time, Ajit Pawar was the hero of Maharashtra. But now he’s the villain of Maharashtra”. 

(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)