Many corners, no centre

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 political disarray: fluid loyalties, exhausted ideologies and an increasingly transactional politics.

On paper, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) remains the single largest force, contesting 157 seats on its own, with an additional nine seats allocated to allies and sponsored candidates, taking its tally to 165. Yet numerical strength masks underlying strain. The BJP has declined to renominate 42 of its sitting corporators, triggering a wave of defections that has scrambled local equations. Many rejected aspirants have sought refuge in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) or one of the Shiv Sena factions, less out of conviction than electoral survival.

Strange Contests

Both factions of the NCP (led by Sharad Pawar and his nephew Ajit Pawar) are contesting over 100 seats each, an extraordinary spectacle for a party that once prided itself on discipline and unity. Most candidates loyal to the NCP alliance are contesting under the familiar clock symbol, but the symbolism disguises a deeper confusion about leadership and direction. Ajit Pawar’s camp has drawn in allies such as the Republican Party led by Sachin Kharat, while Sharad Pawar’s faction has struggled to keep its urban cadre intact.

The Shiv Sena, split between Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s faction and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT), is similarly divided. Shinde’s group has fielded 111 candidates, while the UBT faction is contesting 70 seats. The Congress, contesting 90 seats, finds itself in an awkward three-party understanding with the Sena (UBT) and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), an alliance born less of ideological convergence than mutual weakness. Even this arrangement is porous: in around 20 wards, Congress and Sena (UBT) candidates are locked in ‘friendly’ contests that are friendly in name only.

Smaller parties add to the clutter. The MNS is contesting 44 seats, hoping to reclaim some relevance in its home turf. The Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, allied with the Congress in Mumbai, has gone its own way in Pune. The Aam Aadmi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party are also in the fray, further fragmenting the vote.

Beneath the shifting alliances lies a more striking continuity: dynastic politics thrives even amid chaos. Sons and daughters of established politicians have found tickets across parties, often following their elders’ ideological migrations. Surendra, son of an NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) MLA, has joined the BJP along with his wife, both now candidates. The son of a former Shiv Sena (UBT) heavyweight has also crossed over to the BJP and been rewarded with a nomination. Similar stories abound across parties, suggesting that while alliances collapse, political inheritance remains remarkably stable.

The churn has elevated ward-level battles into personal duels between former corporators, many now facing off against erstwhile colleagues under rival banners. Senior city leaders from nearly every major party - the BJP, Congress, both NCP factions, both Senas, the MNS and the AAP - have entered the fray themselves, signalling how high the stakes have become.

Pune’s election may decide who controls the city council, but its larger significance lies elsewhere. It shows a political system where alliances are brittle, ideology thin and loyalty provisional. In such a landscape, four-way contests are not an exception but the new normal. Regardless of whoever wins, the city’s governance is likely to be as fragmented as the campaign that preceded it.