Many of the leaders who have joined the Sharad Pawar-led NCP were among those uncertain about getting a ticket from assembly constituencies of their choice given that seat-sharing within the Mahayuti, especially between former rivals BJP and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, is likely to be challenging.

Mahayuti comprises the BJP, Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led NCP. The NCP underwent a vertical split in 2023 when a majority of its MLAs rebelled against the Sharad Pawar-led party under the leadership of the Ajit Pawar-led NCP to join the ruling alliance.

“There’s a general sentiment that the pattern seen in the Lok Sabha elections this year may continue in the state assembly election too. In this Lok Sabha election, the Sharad Pawar-led NCP had the best strike rate and has hit the ground running immediately after the elections, travelling to different parts of Maharashtra on a daily basis,” political commentator Hemant Desai told ThePrint.

In the Lok Sabha election, the Sharad Pawar-led NCP contested 10 of Maharashtra’s 48 seats and won eight of them. In comparison, the BJP contested 28 and won nine seats in the state, while the Ajit Pawar-led NCP contested four and emerged victorious only in one.

Leaders who defected to the Sharad Pawar-led NCP have been from the undivided NCP’s traditional bastions of western Maharashtra and Marathwada, increasing the Sharad Pawar-led party’s strength in these regions after the split in the party, its leaders and its cadre.

Mahesh Tapase, spokesperson of the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, said people are joining his party because the BJP itself has become a party of turncoats.

“The people who are original BJP leaders are also upset and do not like this power-hungry version of their party. In Maharashtra, the BJP split the Shiv Sena and the NCP, and now Ajit Pawar has become a big liability for the BJP. Meanwhile, the second rung leadership of the BJP has been making extremist statements that Ajit Pawar is criticising,” he said.

He added that several MLAs from the Ajit Pawar-led party are in touch with Sharad Pawar trying to explain their stand, why they rebelled and how they would like to come back.

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BJP’s loss, Sharad Pawar’s gain

Of the seven who have joined the Sharad Pawar-led NCP since June, five were BJP leaders, namely Samarjitsingh Ghatge, Bapusaheb Pathare, Suryakanta Patil, Sudhakar Bhalerao and Madhavrao Kinhalkar.

Pathare, a former MLA from the Wadgaon Sheri assembly constituency in Pune, joined the Sharad Pawar-led party with his son last Tuesday.

Pathare had won as an MLA from the constituency in 2009 as a candidate of the undivided NCP. He was, however, unable to retain the seat in 2014 when there were no alliances and all parties contested solo. Blaming local factionalism for his defeat, he soon joined the BJP.

In 2019, the BJP preferred to repeat its sitting MLA, Jagdish Mulik, who had defeated Pathare in 2014, as a candidate from Wadgaon Sheri.

Mulik, however, lost to Sunil Tingre who had contested from the undivided NCP. With Tingre now with the Ajit Pawar-led party, which is seeking to retain all seats that have sitting NCP MLAs as part of seat-sharing within the Mahayuti, the Pathare family’s future in the BJP appeared bleak.

Ghatge, who is related to the royal family of Kolhapur, had similar roadblocks in his constituency of Kagal from where he had contested as an independent candidate in 2019. He lost to the undivided NCP’s Hasan Mushrif.

Considered to be close to Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Ghatge was among the party’s most prominent faces from the region and was preparing to contest the 2024 polls.

However, given the Ajit Pawar-led NCP’s alliance with the BJP, the possible candidature of Mushrif, a cabinet minister in the Mahayuti government, was an impending hurdle.

Before the switch, Ghatge addressed his supporters, telling them he has had discussions with Fadnavis, Sharad Pawar and Jayant Patil, Maharashtra chief of the Sharad Pawar-led NCP. “For Kagal’s independence, whatever decisions need to be taken, Samarjit Ghatge is ready to take them,” he added.

Similarly, Bhalerao, a former MLA from Udgir assembly constituency in Marathwada’s Latur district, also quit the BJP as there is a sitting MLA from the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, BJP sources said.

Bhalerao won the Udgir assembly constituency for two consecutive terms in 2009 and 2014. In 2019, the BJP replaced him with Anil Kamble who lost to the undivided NCP’s Sanjay Bansode. Bansode is now a sitting Mahayuti MLA from the Ajit Pawar-led NCP.

Former Union minister Suryakanta Patil, who had defected to the BJP from the undivided NCP in 2014, was among the first to return to Sharad Pawar’s leadership soon after the Lok Sabha election results in June this year. Patil had represented the Hingoli-Nanded Lok Sabha constituency in the Marathwada region four times in the past.

Patil had reportedly demanded a nomination from the Hingoli Lok Sabha seat, which went to the kitty of the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena during seat-sharing negotiations. The Mahayuti lost the seat to the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray).

A month after Patil’s defection, Kinhalkar who also hails from Nanded in the Marathwada region, joined the Sharad Pawar-led NCP complaining about the changing character of the BJP, saying it is not the same party as it was when he joined.

In Indapur, an assembly constituency in the Pune district, supporters of BJP leader Harshvardhan Patil earlier this month put up posters urging Patil to take up the tutari, the symbol of the Sharad Pawar-led NCP.

Posters cropped up amid speculation about Patil, who joined the BJP from the Congress in 2019, switching to the Sharad Pawar-led party after the two leaders had a meeting last month.

Indapur had been Patil’s stronghold until 2014 when Datta Bharne from the undivided NCP defeated him. Bharne, who is now with the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, won the seat again in 2019.

During his Jan Samvad Yatra in August, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar staked claim to the Indapur seat, irking Patil, who has also been eyeing the seat within the Mahayuti.

“When seat-sharing discussions haven’t happened yet, how can anyone stake a claim on the seat? Is this the Mahayuti dharma?” Patil said while speaking to his supporters this month.

“I am getting calls from everyone, but I have not said yes to anyone,” adding that change is imminent in the Indapur assembly constituency this election.

Former BJP leader Eknath Khadse’s decision to stay put with the Sharad Pawar-led NCP instead of going back to the BJP is also being seen as a win for the latter considering Khadse’s daughter-in-law, Raksha Khadse, is part of the Narendra Modi-led Union cabinet.

Eknath Khadse, who has had differences with Devendra Fadnavis, left the BJP squarely blaming Fadnavis for his exit in October 2020. He then joined the NCP and stayed with Sharad Pawar after the NCP split in 2023.

In April this year, Eknath Khadse had indicated his return to the BJP.

However, earlier this month, he said he plans to stay put with the Sharad Pawar-led NCP. The strongman from Jalgaon said he was humiliated by Maharashtra BJP leaders and that there is no possibility of his return to the BJP now.

BJP spokesperson Vishwas Pathak said it is all a “part and parcel of politics”.

“Some people are impatient so this is bound to happen. While selecting candidates we will give winnability utmost importance. And those who are hopefuls should not assume they are not going to get nominations considering seat-sharing and candidate selection are still pending. Rebellions happen, but over the years people have come back to the party, and many new people are joining the party too,” he said.

Local defections from Ajit Pawar-led NCP

Defections from the Ajit Pawar-led NCP to the Sharad Pawar-led party have largely been restricted to key local leaders in the undivided NCP’s micro bastions.

In July, Ajit Gavhane, a key leader in the undivided NCP’s stronghold of Pimpri Chinchwad in Pune district, joined the Sharad Pawar-led party from the Ajit Pawar-led side along with 20 other former corporators from the region.

They said they were finding it difficult to work alongside the BJP in the Mahayuti with the party having been its traditional rival in Pimpri Chinchwad.

In August, Pravin Mane from Indapur, which comes under the Baramati Lok Sabha constituency, shifted back to the Sharad Pawar-led NCP after deserting his daughter Supriya Sule’s Lok Sabha election campaign midway and joining the Ajit Pawar faction in April this year.

Another tall leader from the Ajit Pawar-led party, Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar, former chairman of the state legislative council, had threatened to join the Sharad Pawar-led NCP over differences with two BJP leaders in Madha in Western Maharashtra’s Solapur district.

Prior to the Lok Sabha election too, there had been defections to the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, which benefited from them in the elections. Leaders such as Bajrang Sonawane and Nilesh Lanke joined the party from the Ajit Pawar-led NCP and won parliamentary seats in Beed and Ahmednagar, respectively. Similarly, Dhairyasheel Mohite Patil quit the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls to join the Sharad Pawar-led NCP and won the election from Madha.

(Edited by Sugita Katyal)

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