History
The state of Maharashtra was formed on 1 May 1960, and since then its politics have been evolving. The INC was long without a major challenger, and enjoyed overwhelming support from the state's sugar co-operatives and thousands of other cooperative organizations involved in the rural agricultural economy of the state such as marketing of dairy and vegetable produce, credit unions etc. Since 1930s when Keshrao Jedhe joined the Congress party, the politics of the Bombay state and its successor Maharashtra state has been dominated by the mainly rural Maratha-Kunbi caste. [1] This group dominates the cooperative institutions and with the resultant economic power, control politics from the village level up to the Assembly and Lok Sabha seats. Since 1980s, this group has also been active in setting up private educational institutions. [2] Major past political figures of Congress party from Maharashtra such as Keshavrao Jedhe, Yashwantrao Chavan, Vinayakrao Patil, Vasantdada Patil, Shankarrao Chavan Keshavrao Sonawane and Vilasrao Deshmukh have been from this group. Sharad Pawar, who had been a towering figure in Maharashtrian and national politics belongs to this group. The state's political status quo was upset when Sharad Pawar defected from the INC, which he perceived as the vehicle of the Gandhi dynasty, to form the Nationalist Congress Party. This followed disputes between Pawar and the INC president Sonia Gandhi. This offshoot of the Congress party split the Maratha community support. In the last thirty years, however, Shiv Sena and the BJP began gaining a foothold in the state of Maharashtra, especially in the urban areas such as Mumbai. Shiv Sena and the BJP came into the power in 1995, which was a big blow to the INC. After one term, however, the Congress-NCP alliance regained power and held it until 2014. The INC contested the 2014 state assembly election without getting in a formal alliance with the NCP and lost power to the BJP.
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.
Samyukta Maharashtra Movement, commonly known as the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti, was an organisation in India that advocated for a separate Marathi-speaking state in Western India and Central India from 1956 to 1960.
The Peasants and Workers Party of India (PWP) is a Marxist political party in Maharashtra, India. The party was founded in 1948, having its roots from the pre-Independence period and has around 10,000 members. The influence of the party is largely limited to three districts. The party was founded in Maharashtra by Keshavrao Jedhe of Pune, Shankarrao More, Bhausaheb Raut of Mumbai, Nana Patil of Satara, Tulshidas Jadhav of Solapur, Dajiba Desai of Belgaum, Madhavrao Bagal of Kolhapur, P K Bhapkar and Datta Deshmukh of Ahmednagar, Vithalrao Hande and others.
The All India Congress Committee (AICC) is the presidium or the central decision-making assembly of the Indian National Congress. It is composed of members elected from state-level Pradesh Congress Committees and can have as many as a thousand members. It is the AICC that elects members of the Congress Working Committee and the Congress President, who is also the head of the AICC.
Yashwantrao Balwantrao Chavan was an Indian freedom fighter and politician who served as 8th Minister of Finance from 1970 to 1971 & 1971 to 1974. He served as the last Chief Minister of Bombay State and the first of Maharashtra after latter was created by the division of Bombay state. His last significant ministerial post was as the Deputy Prime Minister of India in the short lived Charan Singh government in 1979.
Vasantrao Banduji Patil was an Indian politician from Sangli, Maharashtra. He was known as the first modern Maratha strongman and first mass leader in Maharashtrian politics.
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.
Prithviraj Chavan is an Indian politician who was the 17th Chief Minister of Maharashtra from 2010 to 2014. Chavan is a graduate of BITS Pilani and University of California, Berkeley in mechanical engineering. He spent time working in the field of aircraft instrumentation and designing audio recorders for anti-submarine warfare in the US before returning to India and becoming an entrepreneur in 1974. Referred to in the media as a technocrat with a clean, non-controversial image, a low-profile leader. Chavan served as the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances, and Pensions. Chavan was also General Secretary of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC), in-charge of many states, including Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Haryana, Gujarat, Tripura, and Arunachal Pradesh.
Gulabrao Raghunathrao Patil was a Renowned Congress & Co-operative Leader, Member of Parliament (MP)-Rajya Sabha India, Maharashtra State Sangli from 1966 to 1978, Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) of Maharashtra 1983−87 and President of Maharashtra Pradesh Indian National Congress (I) Committee, Mumbai 1981−82.
Govindrao Wamanrao Adik was an Indian politician. He was a member of the Nationalist Congress Party and served as a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha. He began his political career as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) and he is brother of Adv. Ramrao Adik 3rd Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra.
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.
Keshavrao Marutirao Jedhe (Deshmukh) (21 April 1896 – 12 November 1959) also known as Keshavrao Jedhe was an Indian independence activist and politician from Pune. He served as a leading figure in the Indian National Congress, and in the Samyukta Maharashtra movement during the independence. The famous Swargate chowk in Pune is named after him.
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.
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.
Nana Falgunrao Patole also known as Nanabhau, is an Indian politician and a member of the Indian National Congress Party and the President of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee.
Keshavrao Sonawane (1925–2006) was an Indian politician, who served four terms in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, and was a Co-operative minister in Yashwantrao Chavan's cabinet and later Vasantrao Naik's cabinet during 1962–1967. He was elected as Member of Maharashtra Legislative Assembly for 4 times, twice from Latur constituency and twice from Ausa constituency.
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.
Prin. Dr. P. B. Patil was a member of the Sangli Assembly constituency of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly (1972-1978), a social reformer who worked for the cause of education and rural development in Maharashtra, India. He was born in a small farmer's family in Chikurde village of Walwa Taluka in Sangli district, Maharashtra, India.
The Members of 14th Legislative Assembly of Maharashtra were elected in the 2019 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election, with results announced on 24 October 2019.
