According to the poll body, “The test of majority in the legislative wing found favour in this circumstance of the case, where both groups have found to be working outside the party constitution and the organisational elections.”

The ECI has provided a special concession to the Sharad Pawar-led group by allowing it a “one-time option” to claim a name for its political outfit and provide three preferences by Wednesday afternoon in view of the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections.

In the order, the poll body stated, “When democratic elections get replaced by appointments or when the elections are held contrary to the provisions of the Party Constitution or when the elections are held in an opaque or obscure manner without disclosing the notifications, the electoral college, the place of election, etc, the result is that the Party becomes a private fiefdom of a single person or group of select individuals and the Party is run like a private enterprise. Such situations also lead to the party workers, who are at the bottom of the pyramidal hierarchy, to lose touch with the apex-level representatives.”

“The political parties form an important pillar on which our democratic governance stands and when this pillar is afflicted by an undemocratic way of functioning, there will be reverberations in the national polity,” it added.