New Delhi: Sharad Pawar led a meeting of the Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) working committee in New Delhi on Thursday, July 6, where his decision to ‘expel’ party rebels including Ajit Pawar and Praful Patel was ratified.The 82-year-old veteran politician’s decision to ‘expel’ the rebels is a departure from his earlier decision to petition Rahul Narwekar, the speaker of the Maharashtra legislative assembly, to disqualify them.A report by the Hindu notes that the reason for this departure may have to do with Narwekar’s year-long inaction on a similar petition moved by Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray when his party also experienced a split.Ajit Pawar and nine other NCP MLAs split their party when they decided on Sunday, July 2 to leave the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition the NCP was part of to join the BJP-led Maharashtra government.63-year-old Ajit, who is Sharad Pawar’s nephew, was immediately sworn in as the state’s second deputy chief minister. The nine accompanying MLAs were sworn in as state ministers.Watch | ‘A New Political Innings for Sharad Pawar, Without Any Stalwarts by His Side Now’Praful Patel, a longtime aide of the older Pawar and a Rajya Sabha MP, also jumped ship along with Ajit, who now leads the ‘breakaway’ faction of the NCP and is staking his claim to the entire party’s leadership.“A resolution dated June 30, 2023 signed by [an] overwhelming majority of members of [the] NCP, both from the legislative and organisational [wings], was passed thereby electing Ajit Anantrao Pawar as the president of NCP,” a statement by his faction said according to news agency ANI.But at the working committee meeting in New Delhi, Sharad Pawar brushed off his nephew’s assertion of leading the NCP.“I am the president of the NCP. Someone may issue a statement and say anything, that does not mean anything,” he said according to the Indian Express.He added that he would work effectively regardless of whether he was 82 or 92 years old, responding to a jibe from his nephew that it was time he retired.Pawar senior also responded to Ajit’s claim that the latter’s faction had moved the Election Commission of India (ECI) on June 30 seeking recognition of his breakaway faction as the legitimate NCP, along with a claim to the party’s symbol, which is an analog alarm clock.Also Read: In Maharashtra, It’ll Be Open Season Until the 2024 Lok Sabha Election“I did not know that important papers took five days to travel from one place to another in this country,” he said and wrote to the ECI asking why he wasn’t informed of Ajit’s claim to the party symbol, according to reports by the Express and Hindu.Ajit Pawar has responded to the working committee meeting, saying that until the ECI decides who the “real” NCP is, no such meeting will have any legal sanctity, the Express reported. He currently has the support of 31 of the NCP’s 54 MLAs in Maharashtra’s legislature, but needs the support of five more (two-thirds of the total) to escape disqualification proceedings as per the provisions of the Tenth Schedule.The older Pawar reacted to this by saying that he is certain the “people” support his faction, the Express reported.