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. Narasimha 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 split after his nephew, Ajit Pawar, led a breakaway group. 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.
Bhagat Singh Koshyari is an Indian politician who served as the 22nd governor of Maharashtra from 2019 to 2023. An RSS veteran, Koshyari served as National Vice-President of BJP and party's 3rd State president for Uttarakhand. He also served as 2nd Chief Minister of Uttarakhand from 2001 to 2002 and thereafter, was the leader of the opposition in the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly from 2002 to 2003. He also served as an MLC in Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council and MLA in Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly. He later served as an MP in Rajya Sabha from 2008 to 2014 from Uttarakhand and then the MP in the 16th Lok Sabha from Nainital-Udhamsingh Nagar constituency, earning him the distinction of being elected in both houses of State Legislature and both houses of National Parliament respectively.
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.
Maharashtra is India's third largest state by area and has over 112 million inhabitants. Its capital, Mumbai, has a population of approximately 18 million; Nagpur is Maharashtra's second, or winter, capital. Government in the state is organized on the parliamentary system. Power is devolved to large city councils, district councils, subdistrict (taluka) councils, and village parish councils. The numerically strong Maratha–Kunbi community dominates the state's politics. The state has national and regional parties serving different demographics, such as those based on religion, caste, and urban and rural residents.
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.
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.
Eknath Sambhaji Shinde is an Indian politician who is serving as the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra since December 2024 alongside Ajit Pawar under Devendra Fadnavis. He is the chairperson of Shiv Sena since February 2023 and was the Chief Minister of Maharashtra from June 2022 to December 2024. He is also the Member of Legislative Assembly for the Kopri-Pachpakhadi constituency of Thane, Maharashtra, since 2009 and was formerly the MLA of Thane constituency from 2004 to 2009.
The 2019 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election was held on 21 October 2019 to elect all 288 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. After a 61.4% turnout in the election, the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena (SHS) won a majority. Following differences over the government formation, the alliance was dissolved, precipitating a political crisis.
A political crisis in the Indian state of Maharashtra occurred on 21 October 2019 after the declaration of results of the 2019 legislative assembly election over the formation of a new state government. The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party Shiv Sena alliance crossed the majority of 145 seats needed in the assembly by winning a total of 161 seats in the alliance. Individually BJP won 105 and SHS won 56 seats. The Opposition INC-NCP Alliance with 106 seats did not reach the majority mark. Individually INC won 44 and NCP won 54 seats.
Devendra Fadnavis was sworn in as the chief minister of Maharashtra for the second time on 23 November 2019. Alongside Fadnavis, Ajit Pawar was sworn in as the deputy chief minister. Before a Supreme Court-ordered no confidence motion could take place, Pawar resigned on 26 November. Fadnavis resigned shortly thereafter, making his second ministry the shortest Maharashtra ministry, surpassing P. K. Sawant's 1963 interim government, that had lasted for nine days.
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
The 2024 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections were held on 20 November 2024 to elect all 288 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. The turnout for the election was 66.05%, the highest since 1995. The BJP-led Maha Yuti alliance won a landslide victory, winning 235 seats. None of the parties in the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance won the necessary number of seats to obtain the position of leader of opposition, a first in six decades.
Prithviraj Chavan was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra on 11 November 2010. The following is his cabinet. The government consisted of Chavan's Congress party and the Nationalist Congress Party.
The 2022 Maharashtra political crisis began on 21 June 2022 in the Indian state of Maharashtra when Eknath Shinde, along with several other MLAs of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition moved to Surat in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-governed Gujarat, throwing the coalition into a crisis.
The Members of 14th Legislative Assembly of Maharashtra were elected in the 2019 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election, with results announced on 24 October 2019.
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.
The Third Fadnavis ministry was formed on 5 December 2024 in Maharashtra. The ministry will likely consist of maximum 43 members. The Governor of the state C. P. Radhakrishnan has administered the oath of office and secrecy to the Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Ministers, Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, respectively at Azad Maidan, Mumbai.
