Explained : An untimely death challenges political equations in Maharashtra and Its Impact

Since the 2019 assembly polls, the State has seen changes in government that did not involve elections. In 2023, after he broke away taking a faction of the NCP with him, Ajit Pawar returned to the fold. He then split again, this time engaging in a controversial, extremely brief swearing in.

After the November 2024 assembly elections, he retained his place as deputy Chief Minister, sharing it with Eknath Shinde, who was relegated to deputy Chief Minister. It is well known that an unhappy Shinde, who earlier served as Chief Minister after dramatically splitting the Shiv Sena and breaking away from Uddhav Thackeray, has been potential trouble for Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

The CM has had to play a delicate balancing act between all the associates of his BJP-led Mahayuti alliance.

Matters are further complicated now because if the NCP MLAs break base, the BJP will not like it, the Pawars will be watching, and more importantly, whatever happens here will influence the way the breakaway Shiv Sena of Eknath Shinde takes its course of action for the medium and longer term. Terms between the Uddhav Thackeray Shiv Sena and the Eknath Shinde Shiv Sena are not cordial.

There is bitterness here, but who is to say what will transpire if dynamics change and new realities emerge in the arena for power play that Maharashtra has become.  

This is the price the State pays for becoming a bitter battleground that saw the alarming and unprecedented games of the powers that be engineering a split, taking MLAs away to Surat and then to Assam as it conjured up plans to form a government in the State, and then taking the new alignments into the polls. This is one State that many will be watching for signals on what it means to run governments with breakaway factions and engineer new alliances.

The writer is the Managing Editor of The Billion Press (Syndicate: The Billion Press) (email: editor@thebillionpress.org)