Now, dissonance in Maharashtra BJP on need for alliance with Ajit Pawar’s NCP ahead of Assembly election

According to sources, Maharashtra BJP leaders are unhappy with the lack of vote transfer in Assembly segments held by NCP MLAs.

After the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ascribed the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) poor performance in Maharashtra to its alliance with the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) faction, dissonant chords are now being sounded by the Maharashtra BJP leadership over the need to keep up the alliance with the NCP faction ahead of the crucial Maharashtra Assembly election later this year.

According to sources, Maharashtra BJP leaders, as well as leaders from Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction, are particularly unhappy with the lack of vote transfer in Assembly segments held by NCP MLAs.

At the BJP’s review meet in Mumbai last week to take stock of the party’s dismal Lok Sabha performance, a number of leaders are reported to have complained to the State brass that their alliance with Mr. Ajit Pawar’s ideologically opposed NCP had sent out a “negative message” to the public and had cost the BJP dearly on several key Lok Sabha seats.

The BJP, in alliance with the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Mr. Ajit Pawar’s NCP, was forced to eat humble pie in the Lok Sabha election, being reduced to a single digit figure in the State after winning just nine of the 29 seats contested — down by 14 seats when compared with its tally of 23 in 2019.

The alliance with Mr. Ajit Pawar’s NCP is being singled out as the prime factor, particularly in the BJP’s defeats in western and northern Maharashtra. After a shotgun marriage with the NCP in July 2023, when Mr. Ajit Pawar split his uncle Sharad Pawar’s party, it appears Maharashtra BJP leaders now want to sue for a divorce.

Apart from the BJP’s Mumbai ‘chintan baithak’ last week, several BJP leaders — either defeated candidates or those whose leaders were in-charge of campaigning in seats where the saffron party lost — met with RSS members in Pune’s Motibaug on Monday.

Leaders like Bharti Pawar, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil (whose son Sujay Vikhe lost the Ahmednagar seat), Gopichand Padalkar, Chandrakant Patil, among others held a day-long meeting with RSS leaders to take stock of their poll rout and focus on future strategies, among them being the need for an alliance with the NCP, sources said.