The Nationalist Congress Party led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Saturday said it was ready to contest upcoming local body elections in Maharashtra alone if an arrangement with the ruling Mahayuti alliance “does not materialise”, PTI reported.

Ajit Pawar’s NCP is part of the Mahayuti alliance in the state, along with the Shiv Sena faction led by former Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

“All parties [of the Mahayuti coalition] will finalise their strategy for elections to local bodies,” NCP leader Dilip Walse Patil told reporters. “If the alliance doesn’t materialise, the NCP is ready to contest independently.”

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Sanjay Raut said on January 11 that his party would contest the upcoming local body elections in Maharashtra alone.

Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) leader Supriya Sule also said that local body elections should be fought separately.

The Uddhav Sena and the NCP faction headed by Sharad Pawar are part of the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi in the state, also comprising the Congress.

On December 25, Maharashtra minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule had said that pending elections to local bodies would be held by April if the Supreme Court pronounced orders concerning the state’s Other Backward Caste reservation dispute in the first week of January.

This is the first major political battle between the ruling Mahayuti and the Maha Vikas Aghadi after the Assembly elections in November.

On November 23, the Mahayuti alliance won 230 seats in the 288-member Assembly. The Maha Vikas Aghadi won 46 seats. BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis was sworn in as the chief minister.