Maharashtra Elections 2024: NCP’s first candidate list out; Ajit Pawar to fight from Baramati

By Gargi Chaudhry | First Published Oct 23, 2024, 2:42 PM IST

The Ajit Pawar-led NCP released its first list of 38 candidates for the Maharashtra Assembly elections, setting the stage for a family battle in Baramati. Ajit Pawar will face his nephew, Yugendra Pawar, fielded by Sharad Pawar's NCP, continuing the rivalry seen in the Lok Sabha elections.

For the November 20 Maharashtra Assembly elections, the Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar faction) released their initial list of 38 candidates. Ajit Pawar, the party's leader, will run from Baramati. The list states that Dilip Walse-Patil would run from the Ambegaon seat, while senior NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal will run from the Yevla Assembly constituency. Hasan Mushrif from Kagal, Narhari Jhirwal from Dindori, and Dhananjay Munde from Parali are other leaders.

Once more, it will be a family struggle, as was the case in the Lok Sabha Elections, as Ajit Pawar will take on his nephew Yugendra Pawar, who has been put forward by the Sharad Pawar-led NCP in Baramati. Yugendra is the son of Ajit Pawar’s brother Srinivas Pawar, who currently serves as the treasurer of Baramati-based Vidya Pratisthan Sanstha.

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Ajit Pawar served a record six terms as the representative for the Baramati constituency, which has always been a Pawar stronghold. Ajit Pawar beat Gopichand Padalkar, a candidate for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), by a margin of over 165,000 votes in the 2019 Assembly elections.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, however, Ajit Pawar's NCP suffered a blow when his cousin Supriya Sule of Sharad Pawar's NCP defeated his wife Sunetra Pawar by a margin of more than 158,000 votes.

Upcoming Maharashtra Elections

On November 20, a single phase of voting will take place for the 288-member Maharashtra legislature, and on November 23, the results will be tallied. Following a strong performance in Haryana earlier this month, the BJP is hoping to hold onto power alongside its Mahayuti allies, the Shiv Sena (headed by Eknath Shinde) and Ajit Pawar's NCP.

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The Mahayuti alliance is getting ready for a fierce conflict with the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance, which is made up of the Congress, Sharad Pawar's NCP, and Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena (UBT). Shiv Sena versus. Shiv Sena, NCP vs. NCP, and the perennial Congress vs. BJP contests in Maharashtra's 2018 elections offer a distinctive political contest.

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