The Nationalist Congress Party on Wednesday fielded Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar from the Baramati Assembly constituency as part of its first candidate list for the Maharashtra elections.

Ajit Pawar has held the Baramati seat since 1991.

The polling for the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly will take place in a single phase on November 20. The counting of votes will happen on November 23, alongside that of the Jharkhand elections.

The list released on Wednesday by the Ajit Pawar-led party faction had 38 names, including renomination of 26 of its MLAs. Several of these legislators are ministers who backed Ajit Pawar when he joined the state’s ruling Mahayuti alliance in July 2023.

The Mahayuti comprises Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party faction, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led faction of the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Former Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal will contest from Yeola. Narhari Zirwal, the deputy speaker of the Assembly, has been fielded from Dindori.

State minister Dilip Walse-Patil will contest from Ambegaon, Hasan Mushrif from Kagal and Dhanjay Mundhe from Parli.

The state’s ruling alliance has not formally announced its seat-sharing arrangement for the polls. However, the BJP released its first candidate list on Sunday.

Shinde Sena candidates

On Wednesday, the Shinde Sena group also announced its list of 45 candidates. It included Shinde, who will contest from the Kopri-Panchpakhadi seat in Thane, and several Cabinet members.

The party has fielded ministers Gulabrao Patil for Jalgaon Rural, Deepak Kesarkar from Sawantwadi, Abdul Sattar from Sillod, Shambhuraj Desai in Patan and Dada Bhuse in Malegaon Outer.

State minister Uday Samant will contest from Ratnagiri and Tanaji Sawant from Paranda. Manisha Waikar, the wife of Mumbai North-West MP Ravindra Waikar, will contest from the Jogeshwari (East) constituency.

The faction renominated MLA Sada Sarvankar in the Mahim constituency in Mumbai.

The Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena also announced 45 candidates on Tuesday. The party has fielded Amit Thackeray, the son of the party chief, in Mahim. This is Amit Thackeray’s electoral debut.

The parties of the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi have not formally announced their candidate yet.

The alliance mainly consists of former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena faction, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party group led by party founder Sharad Pawar.

In the 2019 Maharashtra polls, the BJP won 105 seats in the Assembly. The undivided Shiv Sena, its ally at the time, won 56 seats.

The undivided Nationalist Congress Party won 54 seats while its ally, the Congress, won 44 seats.

After the poll results, the Thackeray-led undivided Shiv Sena quit its alliance with the BJP and formed the state government along with a united Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition government collapsed in June 2022 when a group of Shiv Sena MLAs led by Shinde rebelled and formed a government with the BJP. This split the Shiv Sena into two factions, with one led by Thackeray and the other by Shinde who became the chief minister.

A year later, Ajit Pawar, along with several Nationalist Congress Party MLAs, also joined the ruling coalition. This split the Nationalist Congress Party, with one faction supporting Sharad Pawar and the other backing his nephew Ajit Pawar.

In the Lok Sabha elections this year, the first major polls in the state since these developments, the Maha Vikas Aghadi won 30 of the 48 seats in the state. The remaining 18 seats were won by the ruling Mahayuti alliance.

The two alliances each secured a 43% vote share in the general election.