Mumbai: In 2019, Sharad Pawar stitched together an unlikely alliance by bringing together two arch-rivals: the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena and the Congress.
Six years later, the architect of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) finds himself in a tough spot, caught between an old ally and a new one. While the Congress wants to go solo, Thackeray is planning to tie up with the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).
And both sides want Pawar to throw his weight behind them for next year’s Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) election.
In Mumbai, Pawar really doesn’t have an option. He has to ally with one or the other because the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar), or the NCP (SP), has a limited base in the metropolis.
State Election Commission data shows that in 2017, the undivided Shiv Sena got 28 percent vote share, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 27 percent, and the Congress 16 percent. The undivided NCP got only 5 percent, less than the MNS’s 8 percent vote share.
The NCP’s only base in Mumbai was because of leaders like Nawab Malik. Otherwise, it has always been a marginalised player in the BMC elections.
But now the party has split, and players like Nawab Malik and his brother, ex-corporator Kaptan Malik, who controlled some pockets of Mumbai like Anushakti Nagar and Kurla, aren’t with Pawar anymore, and that will impact its chances further.
According to NCP(SP) sources, Pawar believes that all like-minded people should come forward to defeat the BJP, and if the MNS is on board, there is no harm in bringing Raj’s party into the fold.
“Pawar saheb is very clear. He wants the MVA/INDIA bloc to stay together, and the MNS is currently tagging along with the Sena UBT. So that should not be a problem. He was, after all, an architect of the MVA. He will take the right call,” an NCP(SP) leader told ThePrint.
Grand experiment
The MVA was Pawar’s grand experiment of trying to stitch together an Opposition alliance, something he tried to do at the Centre too in 2019 and 2024, but without much success.
The INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) bloc nationally is looking weak as it is losing state elections one after the other.
However, the Aghadi was a success in Maharashtra with the alliance ruling for two and a half years, including the pandemic years, before it was toppled by the rebellion of Shiv Sena’s Eknath Shinde.
Pawar would like to protect this success story as much as possible, especially at a time when his party is becoming more marginalised in Maharashtra politics in terms of numbers since the split in 2023.
In the 2024 assembly elections, Pawar’s party only got 10 of the 288 seats.
While the NCP has been an old ally of the Congress, it was Pawar who strongly backed Uddhav Thackeray. In 2017, when Uddhav met Pawar with an alliance proposal, the veteran also called the Sena leader and his party “like-minded”.
“Uddhav, accompanied by Sanjay Raut, met me at my Mumbai residence 10 days ago. We also discussed the need for an alliance of all like-minded parties in the country,” he said after a two-day NCP workshop in Karjat.
However, he chose not to go with him at that point, only to then later ally in 2019.
Even in the MVA, making Uddhav Thackeray the chief minister was at Pawar’s insistence. That makes this decision even trickier for him.
Taking to social media, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut said, “The Congress might require the approval of high command to take the MNS along. But that is not the case with us. The Shiv Sena and the MNS are together and this is the wish of the people. And even Sharad Pawar and Left parties are with us.”
दिल्लीतून आदेश आल्याशिवाय
म न से ला आघाडीत घेणार नाही: मुंबई कांग्रेस
हा कांग्रेस चा व्यक्तिगत निर्णय असू शकतो
शिवसेना आणि म न से आधीच एकत्र आले आहेत,ही लोकेच्छा आहे
त्यासाठी कुणाच्या आदेश किंवा परवानगीची गरज नाही
श्री शरद पवार आणि डावे पक्ष सुद्धा एकत्र आहेत
मुंबई वाचवा! pic.twitter.com/kwDg49jJjy
— Sanjay Raut (@rautsanjay61) November 22, 2025
Last week, a Congress delegation led by Mumbai Congress chief Varsha Gaikwad met with Pawar in Mumbai with a proposal to join hands. Pawar is expected to hold a meeting with the party’s Mumbai unit to take the discussion ahead.
“Keeping the communal forces away who do divisive politics is our primary goal. This will not do any good to the country nor the city. But no decision has been taken yet. We are still in the process of speaking to our ‘karyakartas’ (workers),” NCP(SP) MLA Jitendra Awhad told ThePrint.
Also Read: BMC polls on horizon, Congress extends hand to ‘natural ally’. Pawar to convene meeting next week
Pawar’s conundrum
Since the split from the Congress in 1999, when Pawar formed the NCP, he has always allied with the Congress. Even the Congress feels that the NCP is its natural ally. Barring the 2014 Maharashtra polls, they have fought all Lok Sabha and assembly elections together.
However, after the debacle of the 2024 state assembly elections, one group in the Congress feels that there is no benefit in allying with the Shiv Sena. For the Mumbai Congress, going with Uddhav won’t benefit it even if the MNS doesn’t come on board.
Congress leaders say Uddhav’s popularity among minorities is growing, prompting Muslims to vote for his party, shifting the vote bank to the Shiv Sena (UBT).
Pawar will try as much as possible to keep the MVA together, but it looks tricky this time because of the compulsions of its constituent parties.
NCP(SP) sources told ThePrint that Pawar thinks there is no harm in getting the MNS on board if they can be a part of the ‘Satyacha Morcha’ (rally against the Election Commission held in Mumbai on 1 November).
“For Sharad Pawar saheb, it will definitely be a tricky situation, but he is saheb. No one can guess what is going on in his mind, and he will take the right decision at the right time,” said the leader quoted above.
On Saturday, NCP(SP) leaders held a meeting, and after the meeting, Awhad told reporters that it was important that all natural allies stay together.
“The workers and leaders have conveyed that the election should be fought as an MVA and with all our other allies against the BJP. Our position from ‘Delhi to galli’ is the same, that is, to defeat the communal forces. For this, the workers feel that the election should be fought unitedly. We have conveyed that to Pawar saheb,” he said.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
Also Read: Maharashtra’s alliance circus looks to Bihar template for a script rewrite ahead of local body polls