'All Rebels Will Be Disqualified': Sharad Pawar On Nephew Ajit Pawar's NCP Rebellion

Sharad Pawar on Saturday said that all rebel MLAs of NCP, who joined the Shinde Sena and BJP coalition in Maharashtra, will be disqualified.

Days after Ajit Pawar led a rebellion from within the NCP and joined the Shinde Sena-BJP coalition, Sharad Pawar on Saturday said that all the rebel NCP MLAs will be disqualified. He also said that he was not retired and that 'I am fire' in response to Ajit Pawar's remark on his age. According to ANI, when asked about Praful Patel's allegations that he gave all powers to his daughter Supriya Sule, NCP chief Sharad Pawar said that party workers wanted Supriya Sule to come to politics, and hence she fought Lok Sabha polls and won.

"We gave Union Minister post to Praful Patel for 10 years. He lost the Lok Sabha election, after that, we gave him a Rajya Sabha seat," Pawar further said.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, Maharashtra Assembly speaker Rahul Narvekar issued notices to MLAs of Uddhav Thackeray and CM Eknath Shinde factions of Shiv Sena to give their reply on the issue of disqualification. Notices were issued to 40 MLAs of Shinde faction and 14 of the Uddhav camp, Assembly Speaker Narvekar said, as quoted by the news agency PTI. This comes days after the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena has approached the Supreme Court, seeking directives to the Speaker of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly to promptly resolve the pending disqualification petitions against MLAs from both the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde faction and the Thackeray faction.

This plea comes in the wake of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar and eight Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), including Praful Patel and Chhaggan Bhujbal, joining the Shinde government.

The plea was filed by Sunil Prabhu, an MLA from the Shiv Sena (Uddhav faction), who highlighted that a previous Supreme Court constitution bench ruling on May 11 had asked the Speaker to take a decision on the pending disqualification petitions at the earliest, reported legal news website Bar and Bench. However, no action has been taken thus far, according to Prabhu. The plea argues that the constitutional requirement of fairness mandates the Speaker to promptly address the issue of disqualification.