The Sharad Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP-SP) is in talks with the Ajit Pawar-led NCP for an alliance in the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal polls to take on the BJP. The move has upset the Congress and the Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray (UBT) Sena, both of which have distanced themselves from the development and said they will not ally with the NCP-SP in these civic bodies. Asked about the Congress decision, UBT Sena MP Sanjay Raut said, “It is the right decision; we support it.”
The NCP-SP’s justification that the tie-up is aimed at countering the BJP has found little acceptance among its MVA partners. The unease is visible even within the party’s Pune unit, where city president Prashant Jagtap has resigned over the issue and is now in talks with the Congress.
The NCP-SP is also keeping multiple options open elsewhere. In Mumbai, it is negotiating seat-sharing with the UBT Sena-MNS alliance, while signalling readiness to engage the Congress if the talks do not yield favourable terms. Rohit Pawar, who is leading the Mumbai discussions for the NCP-SP, has said the party will consider aligning with the Congress if it does not receive a “respectable” share of seats from the UBT Sena-MNS combine.
A similar situation is unfolding in Kolhapur, where sections of the NCP-SP local unit are threatening to tie up with the Ajit Pawar faction, citing dissatisfaction with the Congress over seat allocation.
Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar warned that the shifting alliances risk confusing voters. “For local body polls it has become confusing, because no one knows which party is aligning where. We were in talks with the NCP-SP in Pune, but if they go with the other NCP faction, we will contest alone,” he said.
Leaders such as Sanjay Raut and Maharashtra Congress in-charge Ramesh Chennithala have argued that the MVA agreement applies primarily to Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, leaving parties free to make their own choices in civic polls. However, the evolving alliances are widely being viewed as attempts by parties to test new combinations to take on the BJP at the local level.
