New Delhi: The process of selecting a chief of the Nationalist Congress Party is a time-consuming one, going by the party's rulebook. It is also one in which the party president (Sharad Pawar) has to be thoroughly involved since he is part of the working committee. Given the timeline required for election of the President, the process to elect Ajit Pawar as the party chief - which according to the faction took place on June 30 - should have started at least two weeks before.
In an interview with NDTV on Tuesday, Praful Patel, a former loyalist of Sharad Pawar and now a key leader in the rebel faction - had said the decision to switch camp was taken last week. This gives exactly five days to the Ajit Pawar faction to go through the whole procedure.
Under the NCP constitution, the name of a candidate for the party's top job has to be proposed by 10 members. The working committee has to set a date for the submission of names. The returning officer should get the proposal by a fixed date and the party president is involved throughout as he is a member of the working committee.
There should be a gap of at least seven days between name of candidates being made public and the voting date.
The rules also say after the state committees' voting, the ballot boxes have to be sent to the national committee, of which again, the party president is a part.
There is also an emergency provision, which says that in the absence of a party president, the seniormost general secretary has to step in.
But it is not known if any of these rules were followed.
Sharad Pawar has said that he was entirely in the dark about the rebels' plans. He has also written to the Election Commission, questioning why he was not informed that Ajit Pawar faction has written to them, laying claim to the party name and election symbol.
"We would request this Hon'ble Commission to clarify if the purported petition by Shri Ajit Pawar was in fact filed on 30.06.2023 or on 05.07.2023 and backdated to 30.06.2023 (as per certain news reports). This information will be extremely important to us to formulate an appropriate reply," Mr Pawar wrote to the Commission.
Today, speaking to the media after a meeting of the party's National Executive, Mr Pawar was emphatic. "I am the president of NCP, if someone says (that he is the president) then it is completely false, there's no truth in it. There's no importance if someone (Ajit Pawar) says something... I did not know about the plans of Praful and others to go against me... The ball now is in the EC court to decide," he said.
Then, in a retort to his nephew's jibe at his age, he added, "I am still effective, whether I am 82 or 92".