Maharashtra’s political chessboard is set for yet another shift. Reports suggest that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is devising an all-encompassing, offensive new strategy to compel a complete merger of the two broken factions of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar). The buzz now around the newly nominated Rajya Sabha MP Parth Pawar (38) and his mother, current NCP National President Sunetra Pawar, who are firmly resisting the merger, setting up a direct confrontation with both their central allies and their own state legislators.
The sudden demise of former Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar has created a vacuum in the political scene of Maharashtra. The BJP is working out a formula to balance power sharing between the two NCPs, but has triggered an intense family and organisational mutiny.
Inside the Pawar resistance: Fear of a hostile takeover
Despite the BJP’s central leadership’s proposed offering of two Union Cabinet berths to a reunited NCP as part of a broader political understanding. By retaining the NCP as an independent ally within the NDA, the current ruling faction of the NCP remains completely unyielding. The resistance from Sunetra and Parth Pawar is rooted in a fundamental survival instinct: preventing their political rivals from regaining the empire.
A close aide of Sunetra Pawar explicitly revealed the core motivation behind this stance to the Hindustan Times. Both the NCP president and her son are strongly opposed to the merger, as they are unwilling to allow NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar and his daughter, Supriya Sule, to reclaim control of the party.
However, realizing that the central government’s legislative pressure might make the merger mathematically inevitable, the NCP has laid down its terms. Reportedly, the mother-son duo intends to press for Sunetra Pawar to aggressively leverage her position to retain her dual portfolios as the state’s Deputy Chief Minister, her current cabinet portfolios in Maharashtra, and the National President’s seat of the consolidated party.
The rebellion within: MLAs challenge Parth Pawar’s maturity
This defensive posture by the family has triggered a severe internal rebellion among the party’s elected representatives in Maharashtra. The tragic passing of Ajit Pawar on January 28 created a deep leadership vacuum, and the rank-and-file are growing increasingly anxious about their electoral prospects.
The Hindustan Times, citing a NCP leader on conditions of anonymity, reported that Parth Pawar’s immediate strategy to seize absolute control by forming a tight-knit core team of young personal aides has severely alienated veteran politicians who spent decades building the party alongside his father.
Multiple MLAs have raised serious doubts regarding the Sunetra-Parth combine’s ability to navigate negotiations with seasoned, ruthless political operators like Devendra Fadnavis and Eknath Shinde.
As a result, a substantial faction of legislators is quietly working behind the scenes to support the merger, under the clear condition that patriarch Sharad Pawar formally returns to lead the coalition.
The sheer depth of this anxiety was laid bare in a striking three-page official letter written by NCP Vice-President Udaykumar Aher to Sunetra Pawar, the communication openly admitted that senior leaders within their own ranks are attempting to run a targeted campaign to end the 38-year-old MP’s career before it truly begins.
“An unfair perception has been created that Parth Pawar lacks political maturity. Some within our own ranks are attempting to spread the impression that Parth cannot do justice to either the party or the people. This is an open secret. At just 38 years of age, attempts are being made to end his political career before it has truly begun, especially after the demise of Ajit Dada,” Aher wrote.
Why does NDA urgently need an NCP merger?
The reason for the BJP’s aggressive push for a unified NCP has to do with the numbers game in the Parliament.
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is gearing up for a high-stakes battle in the upcoming monsoon session, starting on Monday, to pass critical legislation: ‘The Constitution Amendment Bill for Delimitation and the implementation framework for the Women’s Reservation Bill.’ Because these are constitutional amendments, the government requires a strict two-thirds majority in Parliament.
The total current strength of Lok Sabha: 540 seats, two-thirds majority needed: 360 votes. The NDA’s current baseline tally: 319 votes with a shortfall of 41 votes.
Currently, the NCP faction led by Sunetra Pawar, an ally of NDA, while the rival NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) faction sits firmly with the opposition INDIA bloc. To bridge this critical vote gap, the central BJP leadership has designed a plan, offering a Union Cabinet berth to each outfit as an incentive to merge under the NDA umbrella. If successful, the move would instantly push the NDA’s tally up to 327 votes, bringing them within striking distance of the threshold while counting on opposition abstentions to cross the finish line.
