Mumbai: In a dramatic turn that could reshape Maharashtra’s political landscape, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar has announced a grand Opposition alliance uniting his faction with deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar’s NCP and chief minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena to take on the BJP in the forthcoming municipal corporations, zilla parishads, and panchayat samiti elections.
Speaking at a packed rally in Pune on Saturday, the 84-year-old veteran declared, “The people of Maharashtra have taught BJP a lesson in the recent Lok Sabha polls. Now we will repeat that performance in every nagarpalika and gram panchayat.” Pawar revealed that seat-sharing talks are already in “final stages” and the tripartite front will contest under a common symbol to maximise anti-BJP consolidation.
Sources close to the development say Ajit Pawar and Eknath Shinde, despite being part of the ruling Mahayuti government with BJP at the state level, are furious over the saffron party’s aggressive poaching of their corporators and unilateral candidate announcements in several civic bodies. With over 25 municipal corporations — including giants like Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, and Thane — going to polls early next year, the stakes are enormous.
Political circles are stunned by the irony: two factions that split acrimoniously in 2023 and 2024 are now joining hands against their own alliance partner.
Analysts believe Sharad Pawar has masterfully exploited BJP’s overreach, turning local body battles into a referendum on Devendra Fadnavis’s leadership.
As the winter session looms, this unlikely “Pawar-Shinde-Ajit” axis has set the stage for Maharashtra’s fiercest civic war in decades.