A little over two and a half months after the Nationalist Congress Party president and Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar's sudden death, the party is now clearly at a crossroads, and there is a lot of speculation about which way it is headed. The situation is a bit complex, and the challenges before the NCP seem steep, as Maharashtra's ruling coalition leader, the BJP, takes more and more space in the NCP's political bastions, and the party itself is going through internal strife.

Towards the end of 2025, there was a clear buzz that the two factions of the NCP were contemplating some kind of a merger. In fact, both factions fought the municipal polls and the district council polls, which happened in the first two months of 2026, together under the same election symbol—the clock. It is believed that as many as 13 meetings took place between the leaders of both the factions to decide the details of the merger, including the ministerial portfolios to be offered to the two senior leaders of the NCP. It was decided that after the district council or zilla parishad poll results came out, on February 12, 2026, the two factions would announce their........

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