Abhijit Joshi

In Maharashtra’s long and complicated history of politics, very few stories are as fascinating or as layered as the silent but very real tug-of-war happening inside the Pawar family. On one side stands the patriarch, 85-year-old Sharad Pawar, one of India’s sharp political minds who has been Chief Minister of Maharashtra four times. On the other stands Parth Pawar, his grandnephew and son of the deceased Ajit Pawar, who has just been sworn in as a Rajya Sabha MP. While Sharad Pawar, as the...

With Ashwini Bhide helming the BMC, women in Maharashtra are no longer merely breaking bureaucratic ceilings but redesigning the building itself. India has a powerful legacy of women power in the political and administrative field, and when the power is in the administrative government, the power game is different. Take Kiran Bedi, who became India’s first woman to join the Indian Police Service in 1972, was known for her fearless approach and innovative policing techniques, and reformed...

In Maharashtra’s fractious politics, the BJP is showing that power lies not in noise, but in deft timing. Maharashtra’s politics has rarely lacked for drama. Alliances fray and reform, and crises appear with theatrical regularity. Yet the state’s current political moment is less about spectacle than about subtlety. Two seemingly unrelated episodes – the grim scandal surrounding a self-styled godman in Nashik and a local council election in Satara - offer a revealing glimpse into how the...