NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday said it will consider early listing a plea by Sharad Pawar challenging an Election Commission order recognising the Ajit Pawar-led faction as the real Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).The veteran leader sought an urgent hearing of his plea in the wake of twin blows suffered by the group led by him and the consequential fear of facing action for possible violations of whip by his MLAs.The whip may be issued by the faction led by Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for the veteran leader, pointed out to a bench headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud to seek urgent listing of the plea.Singhvi said the plea needed urgent listing in view of the February 15 order of Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar.Narwekar held that the NCP faction led by Ajit Pawar was the real NCP and that the anti-defection provisions in the Constitution cannot be used to stifle internal dissent.Prior to this, the poll panel announced on February 6 that the Ajit Pawar faction is the real NCP and also allotted the party’s ‘clock’ symbol to the group.”Now the Sharad Pawar group will be under the party whip when the assembly starts functioning… our case is worse than Uddhav Thackeray as we have not been allotted any alternate poll symbol,” the senior lawyer said and sought hearing on February 19.”I will just see,” the CJI said.The special Maharashtra assembly session is beginning on February 20.Pawar, who founded the NCP with former Lok Sabha speaker Purno Sangma and Tariq Anwar in 1999 after their expulsion from the Congress, filed the petition through lawyer Abhishek Jebaraj.
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