Strife brewing between Maha Vikas Aghadi’s allied members?

There is tension building between two major partners—Indian National Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)—of Maharashtra’s ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition. The conflict comes at a time when Shiv Sena, the third major player in the MVA coalition, is going full throttle against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the municipal and local bodies elections.

Over the last week, leaders of Congress and NCP have been at a war of words. During Congress’s Chintan Shivir in Rajasthan’s Udaipur, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee President Nana Patole seemed to have made his displeasure about NCP’s “backstabbing” known to Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

Patole accused NCP of “backstabbing” after the local NCP unit joined hands with the opposition BJP at the Gondia Zilla Parishad elections. After the polls, BJP’s Pankaj Rahangdale was elected president, while NCP’s Yashwant Ganvir was elected vice-president.

The problems between Congress and NCP—the two parties had shared power in the state between 1999-2014 as Democratic Front—started in Vidarbha.

“They have done so in the past, like Malegaon and Bhiwandi,” Patole said referring to the incidents when Congress corporators joined the NCP.

The NCP, however, downplayed the incidents saying that the Gondia polls were a local issue.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and NCP leader Ajit Pawar said: “Patole’s statement is ridiculous. You all know he joined the Congress after quitting the BJP (in 2018). So, should the BJP allege that he backstabbed it to join the Congress?”

Shiv Sena, on the other hand, had yet to comment on the issue.

As the municipal elections near, Maharashtra Chief Minister and Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray has sounded the bugle, while NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, said that state NCP President Jayant Patil will talk Shiv Sena and Congress leaders about electoral tie-ups.