The internal disciplinary committee of the Nationalist Congress Party has recommended the expulsion of Ajit Pawar from the primary membership of the party.
With the recommendation, the responsibility to remove Ajit Pawar from the primary membership of the party has now moved to party president and uncle Sharad Pawar.
Any expulsion of Ajit Pawar will be designed to reduce the legal confusion regarding Ajit Pawar’s status within the party.
The ruling BJP has maintained that Ajit Pawar is the leader of the NCP inside the Maharashtra legislative assembly, a position he was elected to soon just days earlier.
To counter this, a meeting of NCP MLAs was called yesterday, in which the MLAs removed him from that position.
However, some BJP leaders have refused to accept that decision, claiming that the meeting was not attended by all NCP MLAs.
A removal of Ajit Pawar from NCP’s primary membership, which doesn’t require the nods of MLAs, will once and for remove any confusion about whether he can continue to claim to be the leader of the NCP inside the legislature or issue a whip on behalf of the party.
A whip refers to an instruction issued by a party to its members to vote in a particular way on a particular subject or question.
NCP is likely to issue a whip asking its members to oppose the BJP government’s trust motion, expected to take place later this week.
Any NCP MLA who acts counter to the party whip can be disqualified from his membership of the house by the speaker under the Representation of People Act.
BJP leaders have been claiming that Ajit Pawar is still the NCP whip, and if any NCP MLA fails to honor his direction, he or she will be disqualified.
In a meeting today, Sharad Pawar assured his MLAs that his nephew is no longer the whip and that he has been stripped of all his positions in the party.
However, the party may go ahead and expel him from primary membership as well, especially if the Supreme Court tomorrow allows for a BJP leader to take up the seat of the speaker.