New Delhi: Signalling that her party could support the 131st Constitution Amendment Bill, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) working president Supriya Sule has triggered surprise and sowed apprehension across the Opposition, particularly the Congress. “Give the 50 percent condition on paper, then we will discuss,” the Baramati representative in the Lok Sabha said at a press conference Tuesday, adding that the party would first study the Bill before taking a final decision.
The calibrated stance taken by Sule marks a departure from the NCP(SP)’s outright opposition to the legislation during the special session in April, when the Opposition voted against the Bill after Union Home Minister Amit Shah made it clear that the government intended to increase the number of Lok Sabha seats through a fresh delimitation exercise.
While Shah has maintained that the increase would be proportionate across states, Sule’s remarks—despite her subsequent assertion that the party would consult Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partners before taking a final call—have fuelled speculation over the Sharad Pawar-led party’s political direction amid renewed talk of whether it could eventually move closer to the National Democratic Alliance or Congress.
According to Congress sources, the party has become increasingly cautious after leaders who recently met Sharad Pawar conveyed that the veteran leader was not opposed to delimitation, provided the exercise came with safeguards. Pawar is feeling pressure within, though.
According to the source, five of NCP(SP)’s eight Lok Sabha MPs favour moving closer to the NDA, but Pawar has not opened up his mind on this.
A senior Congress leader said that the party is exploring the possibility of giving Sule a significant organisational role in Delhi should the Pawar family decide to merge with the Congress—the party from which it originally split in 1999. While the Pawar family has publicly dismissed speculation of any merger, the source said the veteran leader was “assessing all political options”.
“The family has rubbished merger rumours publicly, but Pawar is looking at where it makes the most political sense for him to be,” the source said. Pawar himself had hinted at such a possibility in a 2024 interview, saying regional parties could eventually be compelled to work more closely with the Congress, and that ideological differences between the Congress and the NCP were minimal.
Despite the speculation, Pawar has repeatedly maintained that the NCP (SP) remains committed to the INDIA bloc. Political chatter intensified after leaders from the ruling NCP and the NCP (SP) met at Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’s official residence, Varsha, late on Tuesday night, reviving speculation over changing political equations in the state.
The developments also come against the backdrop of senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram’s allegation that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is attempting to secure the support of regional parties, including the NCP (SP) and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, to pass the proposed constitutional amendment.
In a post on social media platform X, Chidambaram alleged that after splitting the Trinamool Congress, the BJP was now attempting to secure the support of other regional parties for the legislation, which he argued was primarily aimed at facilitating delimitation. He warned that any support for the Bill would amount to a betrayal of the stand taken by these parties during the Budget Session and reiterated the Congress position that delimitation under the existing formula would disadvantage states that had successfully implemented population control measures.
Political analyst Abhay Deshpande believes Sule’s latest remarks represent a significant shift in the NCP(SP)’s messaging. “Earlier, the NCP (SP) had outright opposed the proposal. Now it is saying it will first study the Bill before taking a final call. That itself marks a softening of its position,” Deshpande said.
According to him, the party’s position is now conditional rather than confrontational. “They are saying that if there is an equal increase in seats across all states, so that southern and western states are not disadvantaged, and if there are clear assurances on the delimitation process, they are willing to consider supporting the Bill,” he said.
Deshpande argued that the shift is driven as much by political calculations as by policy considerations. “The NCP leadership knows that the BJP is trying to secure the numbers required to pass the legislation. By signalling that its MPs could support the Bill if their concerns are addressed, it is effectively telling the BJP there is no need to engineer defections. In my assessment, this is as much about protecting party unity as it is about delimitation,” he said.
He added that Pawar’s longstanding working relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah may also be influencing the party’s approach, although the NCP(SP) has not publicly indicated any change in its alliance commitments.
Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh, in an interview with ThePrint, described 17 April as a turning point. According to Ramesh, the BJP required 352 votes to pass the constitutional amendment but managed only 298, making the defeat a significant setback for the government. “What you’re seeing now is revenge,” Ramesh said, linking recent defections from Opposition parties to what he alleged was a BJP effort at shoring up the numbers required to pass the Bill.
Ramesh further said that even after expanding the NDA’s strength in Parliament, the BJP is short of the two-thirds majority required for a constitutional amendment.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)