The Hindu : Pawar can retain 'clock'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 09, 2004

National

National

Pawar can retain 'clock'

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI, MARCH 8. The Election Commission today held that the group led by Sharad Pawar was the real Nationalist Congress Party as it had a far superior numerical support in the organisational and legislature wings of the party and was entitled to use its reserved symbol `clock' for the coming elections.

The Chief Election Commissioner, T.S. Krishnamurthy, and the Commissioners, B.B. Tandon and N. Gopalaswami, rejected the plea made on behalf of the other group led by P.A. Sangma for freezing the `clock' symbol and for letting the two groups to contest elections on an equal footing.

In its 26-page order, the Commission pointed out that Mr. Pawar's group had submitted individual affidavits of support from seven out of eight MPs (the eighth being Mr. Sangma) in the now dissolved Lok Sabha, 57 MLAs in Maharashtra and one MLA each in Goa, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala.

Affidavits had also been filed from three Rajya Sabha MPs and all the 18 MLCs of the party in the Maharashtra Legislative Council. On the other hand, the Sangma group had filed affidavits from all the eight MLAs of the party in the Meghalaya Assembly. These figures, the Commission said, clearly demonstrated the overwhelming superiority of the Pawar group in the legislature wing of the party also.

Referring to the support in the party organisation, the Commission said the last organisational elections in the NCP were held in May 2003 and Mr. Pawar was elected as the president. Of the 23 members of the working committee, 16 had submitted individual affidavits in support of Mr. Pawar as against six affidavits on behalf of Mr. Sangma.

Further, of the 657 members of the national committee, 438 had extended support to Mr. Pawar.

On the basis of this analysis, the obvious inference was that Mr. Pawar's group enjoyed far superior numerical support in the decision-making bodies of the organisational wing of the party.

On Mr. Sangma's plea for an interim order, the Commission said it would have been justified in making an interim arrangement if Mr. Sangma was able to demonstrate matching support in the organisational and legislature wings of the party.

"Taking into account the totality of all these facts and circumstances, the Commission does not see any merit in the prayer of Mr. Sangma for an interim order when the documents placed before it show that the matter can be disposed of finally at this stage itself," the order said and recognised Mr. Pawar's group as the real NCP entitled to the `clock' symbol.

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