The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday allowed the Nationalist Congress Party-SP (NCP-SP) to accept voluntary donations from the public ahead of the Maharashtra Assembly elections.
The party has requested the Commission to issue a notification/certificate detailing the status of the party for the purpose of accepting voluntary donations. The ECI, in its July 8 notification, has allowed the party to accept any amount of donations given voluntarily from individuals or companies other than government companies.
“The ECI provisionally authorises ‘Sharadchandra Pawar’ to ‘accept any amount of voluntary donations from any person or firm other than a Government Company’…Furthermore, this authority shall be binding on ‘Sharadchandra Pawar’ to comply with the conditions prescribed under Sections 29B and 29C of the Representation of People Act, 1951, which govern donations to all political parties,” the letter added.
All political parties will have to disclose to the election body any donations received in excess of Rs 20,000 during a financial year.
The notification was issued after an eight-member delegation of the NCP-SP party, led by working president Supriya Sule, met the committee at Nirbachan Sadan on Monday.
The election body also said that the power of political parties/groups to accept donations to ensure the conduct of elections will apply till the final disposal of petition SLP(C) 4248 of 2024 in the Supreme Court and thereafter will be dealt with accordingly.
In February, ahead of India’s Lok Sabha elections, the Election Commission declared Ajit Pawar’s faction to be the true NCP, while asking party founder Sharad Pawar to find a new name for the party ahead of the Maharashtra Assembly elections.
The other faction then came up with the name NCP-SP. However, Sharad Pawar challenged the ECI’s decision to give the official ‘clock’ symbol of the NCP to Ajit Pawar’s group. The matter is still under hearing.
Similar to its previous order in March, the court had asked the Ajit Pawar faction to declare in newspapers that the allotment of the ‘clock’ symbol was pending before the Supreme Court.
The Maharashtra Assembly elections are scheduled to be held in October-November this year.
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