Ajit Pawar joined the Eknath Shinde-led NDA government in Maharashtra on July 2 not as a rebel of NCP but as the "national president" of the party displacing his uncle Sharad Pawar, who founded it in 1999. It has now emerged that Ajit Pawar had already approached the EC on June 30 for stake over the party symbol and also to inform the poll panel that he had been elected as the new party chief by an "overwhelming majority" of members of NCP, both from the legislative and organisational wing.
