Rajendra Pandharpure

Maharashtra’s most agile politician finds that even political acrobatics have a breaking point NCP (Sharad Pawar) State President Shashikant Shinde and party MLA Rohit Pawar during a rally in Navi Mumbai on Sunday. | Pic: PTI Pune: In Maharashtra’s labyrinthine politics, few figures are as deft or as difficult to read as Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Ajit Pawar. As nephew of Sharad Pawar, the NCP’s grand old man, Ajit has spent the past three years perfecting a...

Pune’s civic elections reveal how Maharashtra’s alliances have hollowed themselves out Pune: Pune’s municipal election, once a contest shaped by familiar coalitions, has turned into a political free-for-all. The collapse of both the ruling Mahayuti and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi has produced four-way contests across all wards, leaving voters to navigate a crowded ballot and parties to improvise alliances on the fly. The city’s election has become a microcosm of Maharashtra’s larger...

The Mahayuti coalition partners have turned into bitter rivals in the municipal fight for Pune and western Maharashtra Pune: An open, and in some places covert, conflict is underway between BJP leader and Union Minister of State Muralidhar Mohol and Nationalist Congress Party president and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, for dominance over cooperative institutions and local self-governing bodies in western Maharashtra. A fierce exchange of accusations and counter-accusations between Mohol...