The Election Commission on Wednesday allotted the name “Nationalist Congress Party- Sharadchandra Pawar” to the Sharad Pawar-led group of the NCP.

On Tuesday, the EC gave the Nationalist Congress Party name and the “clock” election symbol to the group led by Ajit Pawar that had walked away with a majority of NCP MLAs in the Maharashtra Assembly in July last year and joined the Shiv Sena-BJP government.

The Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar was the elder Pawar’s first choice and has been given to the group for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls on February 27. MLAs need to show their vote to a designated agent of their party before casting it, and hence, the ousted formation needs to have a name.

After deciding the dispute of the Shiv Sena in favour of Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde last year, the EC allowed the rival group to use the name Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and the symbol of a flaming torch for bypolls that were due.

The Thackeray group has continued to use this name.

A dispute is currently playing out in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly where the Speaker had ruled that the whip of Shinde’s Shiv Sena would apply to the MLAs of both factions.