Supreme Court has scheduled for hearing on October 13 a plea of Sharad Pawar faction of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) seeking directions to Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar to take action against rebel MLAs led by Ajit Pawar.
The senior Pawar's faction wants an expeditious decision on the petitions filed by it against the rival group, which affected a vertical split in the party. The Sharad Pawar camp had petitioned the Supreme Court to order Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar to reprimand MLAs for switching their allegiance to Ajit Pawar. 40 MLAs were the targets of petitions the party had filed due to "anti-party" activities.
On September 22, the NCP faction led by Ajit Pawar formally submitted a request to Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar, urging him to disqualify 10 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) associated with the party's founder, Sharad Pawar. The petition identifies the following 10 MLAs: Jayant Patil, Jitendra Awhad, Rajesh Tope, Rohit Pawar, Anil Deshmukh, Prajakt Tanpure, Balasaheb Patil, Sunil Bhusara, Sandeep Kshirsagar, and Suman Patil.