Ally with ‘any party except BJP’: Sharad Pawar to NCP leaders

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) founder Sharad Chandra Pawar has instructed NCP leaders to ally with ‘any party except the BJP’ to contest the recently announced local civic body elections in Maharashtra, which is scheduled to begin on December 2, 2025, according to party sources.

Pawar’s instruction will automatically mean that alliances can be struck even with the NCP, which is led by his nephew and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, sources said on Thursday. The development has come at a time when relations between Sharad Pawar and his nephew have improved considerably over the last few months.

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Significantly, Sharad Pawar is Maharashtra’s senior most political veteran, whose words are taken seriously by all political parties. He is also considered the architect of the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Opposition alliance and it was his strategy to make Uddhav Thackeray the chief minister of Maharashtra after the 2019 Maharashtra assembly elections.

When asked about the possibility of allying with Ajit Pawar-led NCP, Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule, who is the NCP’s Lok Sabha MP and the party’s working president, she tried to play it safe, saying, “Our desire is to contest as part of the MVA and we will prioritise the same wherever possible. But it depends on several other factors such as the views of local leaders and various permutations and combinations, as parties in the coalition may want to contest on their own”.

However, another Sharad Pawar-led NCP leader said that, “During a recent meeting, NCP’s national working president Supriya Sule said, except the BJP, local leaders are free to forge alliances with all other parties, wherever they believe such pacts would be in the party’s interest”.

According to NCP sources, Sharad Pawar is keen to ensure Opposition unity against the BJP as possible to such an extent that the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) contests elections against the BJP, as part of the MVA alliance.

Sources said in order to ensure maximum possible Opposition unity against the BJP, Sharad Pawar is engaged in the process of persuading the Congress high command in Delhi to arrive at an understanding with the Raj Thackeray’s MNS or even include it within the MVA fold if possible, despite the Maharashtra unit of the Congress openly opposing any such move.

According to NCP sources, the veteran leader is convinced that bringing MNS into the MVA fold would strengthen the MVA against the BJP-led Mahayuti and help in winning the local civic body elections.

Sharad Pawar is said to have realised that induction of Raj Thackeray in the MVA would pay off politically since he is known to be a crowd puller and a powerful orator capable of swaying Marathi voters.

“Recently, the Maharashtra unit of the Congress led by Harshvardhan Sapkal openly opposed the entry of the MNS to the MVA because of concerns about Raj Thackeray’s previous statements against North Indians and Muslims. Congress leaders based in Maharashtra like Harshvardhan Sapkal and Bhai Jagtap fear that including Raj Thackeray in the MVA could dent its secular vote base. Earlier, only Uddhav Thackeray and Sanjay Raut were keen to include Raj Thackeray within the MVA, but now Sharad Pawar has taken it upon himself to convince the Congress leadership in Delhi to include the MNS within the MVA,” a Sharad Pawar-led NCP leader said.