Mumbai: On the eve of parallel foundation day celebrations, veteran politician Sharad Pawar and his nephew Ajit Pawar shared dais at the Vasantdada Sugar Institute (VSI) in Maharashtra’s cultural capital of Pune on Monday amid multiple reports over past two months of the NCP and NCP (SP) possibly coming together in the run up to the local bodies elections.
The NCP was founded on June 10, 1999, by Pawar, a former Defence Minister and ex-Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. The year 2026 marks the 26th anniversary for the NCP.
In June-July 2023, Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar, who is Deputy Chief Minister, seized control of the real NCP party and the iconic clock symbol while the patriarch had to settle with the name NCP (SP) and man-blowing-tutari symbol.
Both NCP and NCP (SP) have chosen Pune for the foundation day festivities on Tuesday - while Ajit Pawar will address party colleagues at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex at Balewadi Sharad Pawar, his daughter Supriya Sule will address his supporters at the Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir in Shivajinagar. The coming together of Pawar uncle-nephew duo was for an official function of the VSI, the umbrella organisation of the sugarcane grower members of cooperative sugar factories - and it performs, under one umbrella, all scientific, technical and educational functions relevant to the sugar industry of Maharashtra.
For the past few months, the larger Pawar family and the many leaders and members of the NCP and NCP (SP) had called for reunification, however, both the political parties maintained that there is no such proposal.
The parallel meet ups on Tuesday would perhaps provide guidance to the respective party cadres and workers on this issue.
The quarter century of NCP in 2024 was interesting. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the NCP (SP) performed well and had the best strike rate winning 8 of the 10 seats while NCP got just one seat. In the Assembly, however, there was a reversal with NCP winning 41 seats and NCP just 10.
In May, Pawar, in an interview to a newspaper had said, “There are two views in the party. One is that we reunite with the NCP led by Ajit Pawar. The second is that we don’t go directly or indirectly with the BJP. Let’s join the INDIA group and reorganise the alliance.”
This has led to reports of a possible merger.
However, Sule, who is the NCP (SP) Working President and state NCP President Sunil Tatkare had separately said that there is no proposal for merger.
