Both NCP factions say there is no split, no dispute in party
Mumbai (PTI): Senior leaders from both Sharad Pawar- and Ajit Pawar-led factions of the Nationalist Congress Party have said that there was no split in the party.
The Election Commission has called the rival factions of the NCP for a personal hearing on October 6 following a petition filed by the Ajit group claiming that he has been elected as the party’s national president.
“It is unfair on the part of the Election Commission of India to treat our case as a dispute within a political party when we have consistently maintained that there is no split,” said Jayant Patil, the Maharashtra unit chief of the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, on Tuesday.
“Sharad Pawar in his letter to the ECI stressed the fact that he never faced any opposition within the party. There is no dispute. There has been no opposition to my (Sharad Pawar’s) policies from the party on any public platform,” Patil told reporters.
“Pawar also sought time from the ECI to explain his side because there was no dispute but there has been some exchange of emails (with Ajit Pawar’s side). The ECI, without giving time to (Sharad) Pawar, concluded that there is a dispute,” he added.
Asked about Patil’s comments, Chhagan Bhujbal, Maharashtra cabinet minister and senior leader from the Ajit Pawar group, said, “It is good as there is no dispute in the party. Some changes have taken place, such as change of national president....Ajit Pawar is now the party’s president and we have already communicated this to the ECI.”.
Ajit Pawar rebelled against his uncle and NCP founder Sharad Pawar’s leadership in July this year and joined the Shiv Sena-BJP government in Maharashtra as deputy chief minister.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
