Who will use the ‘clock’ election symbol in Maharashtra? SC will hear the case tomorrow

New Delhi. The Supreme Court has said that it will hear on October 24 the petition of Sharad Pawar-led NCP, in which objection has been raised on the use of ‘clock’ election symbol of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar. The matter was directed to be listed immediately before a bench of Justice Suryakant and Justice Ujjwal Bhuiyan. On Tuesday, the lawyer appearing for Sharad Pawar faction informed the bench that the matter was to be listed on October 22 itself, but it is not mentioned in the cause list. After this, the bench directed to list it for hearing on October 24.

The lawyer of Sharad faction said that in the petition, a request has been made to direct both the factions of NCP not to use the ‘clock’ election symbol. The bench said, “We had earlier passed a detailed order on this issue… it was a kind of consent order.” On this, the lawyer of Sharad Pawar faction claimed that the Ajit Pawar-led faction is not following the order of the apex court. He said that the matter needs to be heard urgently, as the last date for filing nomination for Maharashtra assembly elections is October 29.

The lawyer advocating for Ajit Pawar faction said that some candidates of the party have filed nomination for the assembly elections. He alleged that the rival faction has filed this petition to capture the ‘clock’ election symbol. The bench said that it will hear the matter on October 24. The bench has asked Ajit faction to respond by then. Actually, Sharad Pawar has approached the apex court against the Election Commission’s order of February 6, under which the Ajit Pawar-led faction was recognized as the real NCP.

The Commission had also allotted the NCP’s ‘clock’ election symbol to the Ajit Pawar-led faction. On March 19, the apex court had allowed the Sharad Pawar faction to use Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) as its name and allotted it the election symbol ‘person playing a trumpet’. After this, the Supreme Court passed an order on the petition of the Sharad Pawar faction, requesting to stop the Ajit Pawar faction from using the ‘clock’ symbol in the elections. The apex court had said that the Ajit Pawar faction would not be able to use Sharad Pawar’s name and picture for political gain.

Sharad Pawar founded the NCP in 1999 along with former Lok Sabha Speaker Purno Sangma and Tariq Anwar after his expulsion from the Congress. In July 2023, Ajit Pawar rebelled in the NCP and joined the BJP-Shiv Sena government led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde along with most of the party MLAs.