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Ajit Pawar leads civic poll campaign in Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad; key NCP (SP) leaders missing
Sule said her absence was due to prior commitments in Delhi, where she is attending meetings of the joint parliamentary committee till January 8. I will be campaigning from January 8 to 13, she said
Even as the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the NCP (SP) have formed an alliance for the upcoming civic polls in several municipal corporations across Maharashtra, senior leaders of NCP (SP) are conspicuously missing from the campaign, leaving Ajit Pawar to spearhead the joint campaign, particularly in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.
Earlier, supremo Sharad Pawar had announced that he would not campaign in the upcoming elections and would not be involved in seat distribution talks, as he has empowered local leaders and workers to make decisions for civic polls.
Meanwhile, leaders, including Supriya Sule and Rohit Pawar, have not addressed a single public meeting so far in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad. In these two key urban centres, Ajit Pawar has been leading the campaign, addressing rallies and coordinating with candidates on the ground.
Sule said her absence was due to prior commitments in Delhi, where she is attending meetings of the joint parliamentary committee till January 8. “I will be campaigning from January 8 to 13,” she said.
Rohit Pawar, the current chairman of the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA), is preoccupied with the MCA elections scheduled for January 6 and is seeking a second term. “His hands are full because of the MCA polls. He will join the campaign only after January 6,” Sule added.
She also stated that other senior NCP (SP) leaders were involved in various regions of the state. “Jitendra Awhad is campaigning in Thane, Jayant Patil is busy in Sangli, while Anil Deshmukh is campaigning in Nagpur. Local leaders of the NCP (SP), however, are actively participating in the campaign,” Sule said. Calls to Awhad and Jayant Patil went unanswered.
The absence of top NCP (SP) faces has drawn attention, particularly against the backdrop of the alliance between the two NCP factions in civic bodies. The party split in July 2023, when Ajit Pawar walked out with a majority of MLAs to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government, which sharply divided cadres and voters. The current tie-up for municipal elections, cited by senior leaders as a result of insistence from the workers, is being seen as a pragmatic move to consolidate votes at the local level, even as both factions insist there is no formal merger on the cards.
In the 165-member Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), the NCP has fielded over 130 candidates, while the NCP (SP) has put up around 43 candidates.
Ankush Kakade, a leader of the NCP (SP), said attempts were made till the last day of nominations to avoid multi-cornered contests. “Efforts were made to persuade candidates to withdraw, following which 15 candidates withdrew their nominations,” he said.
In the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC), which has 32 wards electing 128 corporators, the NCP (SP) is contesting on more than 30 seats.
While party leaders attribute the limited visibility of senior NCP (SP) figures to scheduling constraints, political observers say the muted presence has also helped Ajit Pawar project himself as the principal face of the joint campaign in urban Maharashtra, at least for the civic polls. Whether the arrangement translates into electoral gains — or eases tensions between the two rival NCP camps — will become clearer once voting concludes.
