The political scene in Maharashtra has never been so chaotic, as it exists today. Until the 2019 elections, there was a clearly laid out political division. The Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena, along with smaller parties, on the one side, and the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on the other. This traditional combination was disturbed in 2019 when the Mahavikas Aghadi government, comprising Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP was formed. The newly imagined alliance not only formed the government but also ran it smoothly until the BJP disturbed the arrangement by breaking constituent parties into separate factions. https://thewire.in/politics/mergers-splits-and-new-symbols-as-chaos-marks-maharashtra-politics-voters-concerns-take-backseat 

Shiv Sena is now Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Bal Thackeray). Similarly, the grand old NCP is now the one led by Ajit Pawar and another by his uncle Sharad Pawar. The split in the parties has also meant that many senior and promising leaders have jumped ships. The Congress party may not have split but many of its senior leaders, including former chief minister Ashok Chavan and former MP Milind Deora, crossed over to the BJP and Shiv Sena (Shinde) respectively.

These mergers, splits and breakaways have only made election campaigns more challenging for the candidates on the ground. Now, as candidates set out to campaign in their respective constituencies, they are no longer focussing on the pertinent issues plaguing their region and the state. “It is all about introducing their new party symbols or the new political party they have newly joined,” says Shakil Ansari, a resident of Kalyan parliamentary constituency, currently represented by chief minister Shinde’s son Shrikant Shinde.

by Sukanya Shantha

19/04/2024