By Vinaya Deshpande Pandit

Copyright thehindu

At a time when the Supreme Court has provided the deadline of January 2026 for holding local body elections in Maharashtra, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has hinted that it might fight the elections on its own steam.

“All decisions on alliances with our alliance partners, if at all, will be taken only at the local level. Most probably, as it has not been finalised yet, because no decision has been taken formally, but the BMC elections are the only place where there is definitely going to be an alliance. So, we feel that the BMC may be the only local body election where the Mahayuti [the ruling alliance in Maharashtra, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the NCP-AP, and the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde)], as such, will be fighting together. All other places will be left to the local leaders. If they are able to forge an alliance, so be it. If not, post-election also we will try to come together,” senior NCP leader Praful Patel told The Hindu in an exclusive conversation in Nagpur.

The party looked at the upcoming local body elections as an opportunity to grow its strength across the regions of Maharashtra, Mr. Patel said. “And this is a chance. Now, you see, these are local body elections. There need not be a Mahayuti in the local body elections because they are small elections. You can’t amicably distribute seats amongst three alliance partners. So, this is a chance to give our workers an opportunity, and to showcase our strength,” he said.

Mr. Patel was speaking to The Hindu in an sit-down interview in Nagpur on the sidelines of the NCP’s ongoing ‘Chintan Shibir’.

‘Vidarbha more’

“Well, why not Nagpur? We are a party which represents the whole State. I myself come from this region,” Mr. Patel said, when asked why the party had decided to hold its Chintan Shibir in Nagpur, known to be the BJP’s fortress.

“And we should focus on Vidarbha more and more, as much as we would like to focus on the rest of the State also. This Chintan Shibir in Nagpur is specifically brought in to bring Vidarbha more into focus in our party activities. We want that in the future elections, there should be a bigger presence of the NCP. Since the formation of the party, we were fighting very few seats from here historically. I’m not speaking of Mahayuti [alliance]. Even when we were in alliance with the Congress, and Pawar saheb (NCP-Sharadchandra Pawar or SP leader Sharad Pawar) was the leader of the party, we gave most seats to the Congress, and therefore our party could not progress. We have now taken a decision that we will strengthen the NCP more and more in Vidarbha,” Mr. Patel said.

‘Muslim Minister’

When asked about the current tussle between the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Marathas in Maharashtra, and the resulting social tension, Mr. Patel said that the Maharashtra government would make sure there was no injustice towards any community.

“We have to see; these are all sensitive issues. They need to be handled carefully because they have long-term implications. There are legal restrictions also, Constitutional restrictions also. Our party is committed to social inclusion. Our party is committed to, I would say, the Shiv-Shahu-Phule-Ambedkar ideology in Maharashtra or in the country as well,” Mr. Patel said.

The Maratha community had led a protest to seek Kunbi status for reservation in Maharashtra. After the Maharashtra government issued an order for the implementation of the Hyderabad Gazette, which documents Maratha agriculturists referred to as Kunbis in the erstwhile Nizam’s rule, the OBC community has been up in arms, expressing fear that the decision might lead to Marathas securing reservation under the OBC category.

“We treat everybody as equals. We are the only party which has a Muslim Minister. We give 10% of our seats in the Vidhan Sabha to the minorities. There is only person in the Upper House who is a Muslim, and that’s our party’s representative. So we treat everybody at par. We don’t want to discriminate, and at the same time, we stand for all people who think that they are in need of government support,” Mr. Patel said.