The region, where NCP has influence, has 12 of the state’s 48 Lok Sabha seats.
With Ajit Pawar taking the bigger chunk of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) with him and joining hands with the BJP, it is believed that the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) as a whole could be on the backfoot in the region of western Maharashtra, an NCP stronghold.
Earlier as well the grand alliance had lost a major chunk of Shiv Sena MLAs to the NDA as Eknath Shinde had split the Shiv Sena.
Analysts based in Maharashtra say that the NJP has played an assertive role in western Maharashtra, which is known as the sugar belt. The region, where the NCP has major influence, has around 12 of the state’s total 48 Lok Sabha seats and 60 Assembly seats. In the Assembly elections, the party had won 19 and 27 seats in 2014 and 2019 respectively from this region. Consequently, in the last Assembly elections (in 2019), out of the 54 seats it had won, the party had been victorious on half of its seats from western Maharashtra alone. In addition to that, the Lok Sabha MPs of NCP from the region are Supriya Sule from Baramati, Dr Amol Kolhe from Shirur and Dr Shrinivas Patil from Satara.
Moreover, when both the NCP groups (Ajit Pawar’s and Sharad Pawar’s) go to Assembly and Lok Sabha elections next year, their respective leaders are expected to seek votes against each other, which, an analyst said, would split the NCP votes. A political analyst based in Maharashtra said, “The traditional fight in most of the seats have had Shiv Sena fighting against NCP and Congress fighting BJP, which means in most of the seats where Shiv Sena has won, the number two candidate would come from the NCP and vice versa. The same happens between the Congress and BJP.
Now that the major chunk of Shiv Sena and NCP are on the same side (Eknath Shinde faction and Ajit Pawar group) and are expected to contest in alliance, we might see a big change which might eventually favour Ajit’s NCP and also Shinde’s Shiv Sena. Yet there is nothing certain. We can see a change of strategies from both sides and it is difficult to presume who will be more powerful as things don’t seem clear now.”
Moreover, as for the NCP split, party insiders claim that the junior Pawar had agreed not to speak anything against Sharad Pawar after leaving the party. However, that agreement did not last long. The party insider said, “It was between the two leaders that if AjitDada leaves the party, he will not speak against Sharad Pawar. But things changed quickly. The senior Pawar seems to be demotivated and Ajit Pawar seems to be in full flow being in opposition to the senior Pawar. How it would result electorally for both factions is to be seen.”
Hitting out at his uncle Sharad Pawar, Ajit Pawar said, “You are now 83, you went to Yashwantrao Dada’s memorial that day. Are you going to stop someday or not? Give us blessings, we need it. You are our hero. I told Supriya Sule also to convince Pawar Saheb, but she told me he is stubborn. He won’t listen. Till when?”