New Delhi: The Congress on Wednesday slammed the Election Commission saying the poll panel’s decision recognizing the Ajit Pawar faction as the real NCP was “expected”.
The Congress also charged the BJP with breaking its allies Shiv Sena and NCP to gain electorally in Maharashtra. “It was expected. The decision of the EC to declare Ajit Pawar faction as the real NCP was predictable. This decision reinforces our charge that democracy norms are not being followed. The same thing had happened in the case of Shiv Sena earlier. The EC’s decisions in the past have suited the politics of the BJP which broke up the Shiv Sena and the NCP to gain electorally in Maharashtra,” AICC secretary in charge of Maharashtra Ashish Dua told ETV Bharat.
The AICC functionary claimed that the BJP’s political calculations would not work in Maharashtra as the Sena and the NCP had lost MLAs to the BJP but not the support of the voters.
“The EC had declared the Eknath Shinde faction to be the real Shiv Sena earlier. But the people are still with the Shiv Sena UBT leader Uddhav Thackeray. The EC has now declared the Ajit Pawar faction to be the real NCP but the voters are still with party founder Sharad Pawar. The EC has allotted the NCP’s poll symbol ‘Clock’ to the Ajit Pawar faction and the Sharad Pawar group will be given a new poll symbol. But the BJP’s aim will not be met as the Congress-Sena-NCP Maha Vikas Aghadi is together and will have an edge in the coming parliamentary elections,” said Dua.
Taking a further dig at the poll panel, the Congress leaders said the EC had not shown the same promptness to the opposition’s concerns related to the EVMs. “The opposition parties have been seeking an appointment with the EC to submit a memorandum over the doubtful role of the EVMs for several months but no time has been given so far. Wish they were so prompt in this case as well,” said Dua.
According to Congress insiders, the MVA, along with the other INDIA alliance partners, was now planning to stage a show of strength by organizing a joint rally in Mumbai on Feb 25. Before that, the final seat-sharing among the MVA is expected to be announced.
“Seat-sharing among the MVA is happening in a cordial atmosphere. We have completed work on around 80 percent of the total 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Some more discussions remain as we are also considering involving a few smaller parties to broad base the alliance. The exercise will be completed soon,” said Dua.
Party insiders said discussions over seat-sharing were ongoing with Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi and Raju Shetty’s Shetkari Sangathan.
The MVA was formed in 2019 when old BJP ally Shiv Sena parted ways with the saffron party and decided to join hands with the Congress and the NCP. NCP chief Sharad Pawar was the architect of the MVA government headed by Uddhav Thackeray. However, the BJP toppled the MVA government in 2022 by making Sena rebel Eknath Shinde the new chief minister. BJP’s former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis was made the deputy chief minister to prop up the new alliance. Later, the EC declared the Shinde faction as the real Shiv Sena and allotted a new name and symbol to the Sena UBT. The NCP met the same fate in 2023.
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