Affidavits from Ajit Pawar faction forged and fraudulent: Sharad Pawar faction's counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi seeks EC action
Nov 09, 2023
New Delhi [India], November 9 : Congress leader and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Sharad Pawar faction's counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi on Thursday accused the Ajit Pawar group of presenting false affidavits before the Election Commission to stake claim over the name and poll symbol of the party and urged the poll panel to take penal action for allegedly falsifying evidence.
"We presented shocking and strange facts before the Election Commission. We found 20,000 such affidavits that were filed by the applicant (the Ajit Pawar faction) before EC, and we presented a chart of 8,900 of those affidavits that were riddled with errors, which shows that all these affidavits are forged and fraudulent," said Singhvi.
Giving some examples of such forged affidavits, Singhvi presented a list of affidavits filed with the EC that are riddled with errors. He gave examples of affidavits where the concerned person was dead, yet that person's affidavit was filed, and another in which a minor filed an affidavit.
Singhvi mentioned a few other similar examples and said, "We have made 24 such categories of fraud, which reflect that all these affidavits are fraudulent. This shows that the Ajit Pawar faction has no support."
He further said, "The arguments will continue on November 20, but we also demanded from the EC that legal action be taken against this and punish them (the Ajit Pawar faction) for the offences under the IPC."
The battle between the Ajit Pawar and Sharad Pawar factions started after Sharad Pawar's nephew, Ajit Pawar, split up from the NCP to join hands with the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government. Ajit Pawar claimed the leadership of the NCP on the grounds that his group had the support of 42 of the party's 53 MLAs, six MLCs in Maharashtra, and all seven MLAs in Nagaland.
The Ajit Pawar faction further collected affidavits from party office-bearers and functionaries to support its claim over the NCP, and as per the reports, each of the MLAs of the Ajit Pawar faction was asked to collect 10,000 signatures of party workers saying they were loyal to the faction.
The first hearing on a claim by the Ajit Pawar-led rival NCP faction over the party's name and election symbol was held last month.
