Sharadchandra Govindrao Pawar is an Indian politician. He served as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra for four terms and in the Union Council of Ministers as the Minister of Defence in the Cabinet of P.V. Narsimha Rao as well as the Minister of Agriculture in the Cabinet of Manmohan Singh. He is the first and former president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP),"which he founded in 1999,after separating from the Indian National Congress". His faction of the NCP was split by his nephew,Ajit Pawar. He leads his faction of the NCP in the Rajya Sabha,the upper chamber of the Indian parliament. He is the chairperson of Maha Vikas Aghadi,a regional Maharashtra-based political alliance.
The Nationalist Congress Party is one of the state parties in India and is one of the major political parties in Maharashtra with a recognised state party status in Nagaland and Kerala. The party has its presence in legislative assemblies of Maharashtra,Nagaland,and Arunachal Pradesh,with being in the governing coalition in all of these states. Besides this,the party is also part of the current governing coalition National Democratic Alliance led by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Kagal is a town in Kolhapur district of the Indian state of Maharashtra.
Jayant Rajaram Patil is an Indian politician from the state of Maharashtra. He has been representing Islampur in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly for more than three decades. He was the Cabinet minister of the Water Resources Department in Uddhav Thackeray ministry. Earlier,he served as the Rural Development Minister,the Finance Minister and the Home Minister of Maharashtra.
Nivedita Sambha Mane is a politician associated with NCP and Shiv Sena. She was a member of the 14th Lok Sabha of India. She represented the Hatkanangale constituency of Maharashtra for two terms 1999 and 2004,as a member of the Nationalist Congress Party. In 2009 polls,she lost to Raju Shetty in Hatkanangle.
The Belagavi border dispute or Belgaon border dispute is a dispute between the Indian states of Karnataka and Maharashtra over the administration of Belagavi. Belagavi is now a district in Karnataka,but in British India,was part of the Bombay Presidency,together with present-day Gujarat,Maharashtra,and certain areas of Karnataka.
Ajit Anantrao Pawar is an Indian politician serving as the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra along with Eknath Shinde under Devendra Fadnavis since 5 December 2024. He is the longest serving Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra non-consecutively. He has served this position for 6 terms within various governments. He has worked as deputy chief minister within the cabinets of Prithviraj Chavan,Devendra Fadnavis,Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde.
Ashok Shankarrao Chavan is an Indian politician from Maharashtra. He is the son of the late former Maharashtra Chief Minister Shankarrao Chavan. He was one of the most influential leaders of Indian National Congress in Maharashtra but joined Bhartiya Janata Party on 13 February 2024. He has served as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra state from 8 December 2008 to 9 November 2010. Also,he has served as Minister for Cultural Affairs,Industries,Mines and Protocol in the Vilasrao Deshmukh government and he is also the former PWD Minister of Maharashtra.
Ganesh Ramchandra Naik is an Indian politician. He is the Bharatiya Janata Party member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly from 150-Airoli Assembly constituency. He represented Thane constituency in the past,and was the Thane Guardian Minister in the state government. He was the minister of Labour,Excise and Environment in the previous government.
Anil Vasantrao Deshmukh is an Indian politician from the state of Maharashtra. He is a senior leader of the Nationalist Congress Party. Deshmukh served as the Minister for Home Affairs in Government of Maharashtra between 2019 and 2021. Deshmukh resigned in 2021 as the Home Minister of Maharashtra due to allegations of money laundering and other charges by Param Bir Singh. He was arrested by ED and was kept in custody for 1 year before being released by a court order.
Vijay Bhausaheb Thorat,known popularly as Balasaheb Thorat,is an Indian politician who served as the revenue minister in Maharashtra state. He also served as the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. Thorat is a senior member of the Congress Party. He is an MLA from Sangamner constituency.
Devendra Gangadharrao Fadnavis is an Indian politician who is currently serving as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra since 5 December 2024 with Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar as his deputies,and previously held this position for two terms from 2014 to 2019. He previously served as the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra,alongside Ajit Pawar in the Eknath Shinde government. Besides this,from 2019 to 2022,he served as the Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. He was the President of BJP's Maharashtra state unit from 2013 to 2015. He became Chief Minister at the age of 44,making him the second-youngest in Maharashtra's history after Sharad Pawar.
The 2014 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election was held on 15 October 2014 to elect all 288 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. After a 63.38% turnout in the election as hung verdict has occurred with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shivsena (SHS) emerged as largest and second largest parties.
Dhananjay Bhimrao Mahadik is an Indian politician from Kolhapur district in Maharashtra state. He is a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra as a candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He was elected to the 16th Lok Sabha (2014–2019) from Kolhapur as an NCP candidate. Dhananjay Mahadik is a Nephew of Mahadevrao Mahadik alias Appa Mahadik.
Although a parliamentary democracy,Indian politics has increasingly become dynastic,possibly due to the absence of a party organization,independent civil society associations that mobilize support for the party,and centralized financing of elections. Family members have also led the Congress party for most of the period since 1978 when Indira Gandhi floated the then Congress(I) faction of the party. It also is fairly common in many political parties in Maharashtra. The dynastic phenomenon is seen from national level down to district level and even village level.The three-tier structure of Panchayati Raj established in the 1960s also helped to create and consolidate the dynastic phenomenon in rural areas. Apart from government,political families also control cooperative institutions,mainly cooperative sugar factories,district cooperative banks in the state,and since the 1980s private for profit colleges. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party also features several senior leaders who are dynasts. In Maharashtra,the NCP has particularly high level of dynasticism.
Jitendra Satish Awhad is a senior leader and Indian politician from Maharashtra. Previously he served as a member of legislative council of Maharashtra from 2002 to 2009. He also served as the Deputy Leader of the Opposition Maharashtra Legislative Assembly with Ajay Choudhari in 2024 and currently a Member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly for 3 terms representing Mumbra-Kalwa in Thane. He has previously served as the Acting Leader of the Opposition Maharashtra Legislative Assembly and he has previously served as Cabinet Minister of Medical Education and Horticulture in 2014 and Housing and Minority Affairs from 2019 to 2022. He belongs to the Nationalist Congress Party.
Patil is an Indian surname used in Maharashtra,Karnataka,Telangana,and Goa.
The Maha Vikas Aghadi,is a state-level political alliance of centre to centre-left political parties in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is one of the two major political alliances in Maharashtra. The alliance was formed under the leadership of Uddhav Thackeray of SHS (UBT),Sharad Pawar of the NCP(SP) and Sonia Gandhi of the INC,along with the support from the PWPI,CPI(M) and several other political parties. MVA is currently the official opposition in Maharashtra Legislative Council. Most of the MVA constituents are members of the Indian National Congress-led Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance at pan-India level. The MVA suffered a setback in 2024,when it could only win 50 seats in the assembly elections,with none of the parties even managing to get the number of seats to have a leader of opposition in the assembly. This stripped its status as the official opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly
Raju Jaywantrao Awale is a leader of Indian National Congress and a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elected from Hatkanangale Assembly constituency in Ichalkaranji,Kolhapur city. He lost in 2024 Assembly Elections.
The 2023 Nationalist Congress Party split occurred on 2 July 2023,when Ajit Pawar,along with several other party leaders,broke away from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led by his uncle Sharad Pawar and joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Shiv Sena alliance government in Maharashtra. Ajit Pawar was sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra,along with eight other NCP leaders who took oath as ministers. This led to a vertical split in the party,with two factions emerging:one led by Sharad Pawar and the other by Ajit Pawar. The split resulted in a legal battle over the party's name and symbol. On 6 February 2024,the Election Commission of India (ECI) awarded the party name and symbol to the faction headed by Ajit Pawar. The faction led by Sharad Pawar was subsequently recognized as Nationalist Congress Party. On 5 March 2024,Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar declared the Ajit Pawar faction as the "real" NCP,citing its legislative majority.
