The Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) cancelled all its spokesperson appointments in a sudden late-night move. TV9 Marathi and Dainik Prabhat first reported the development. The decision has triggered fresh speculation across Maharashtra’s political circles.
State president Shashikant Shinde issued the order. The move affects spokespersons Vidya Chavan and Mahesh Tapase, among others named in the reports. Neither the party nor Shinde has explained the reshuffle publicly, and that silence has left political observers guessing. Some see it as routine disciplinary action. Others read it as the start of a bigger internal restructuring.
This isn’t the first time the party has taken this step. Then-state president Jayant Patil dissolved the party’s entire 22-member spokesperson panel back in April 2025. He gave no reason either.
A party spokesperson at the time suggested restructuring, while separate reports pointed to internal resentment after the NCP-SP’s poor 2024 Assembly election result, when the party won just 10 seats. Shinde himself took over as Maharashtra state president in July 2025, succeeding Patil, who stepped down around the party’s 26th foundation day.
Party insiders framed that handover as preparation for Maharashtra’s upcoming local body and municipal elections. Speculation about tension between Patil and Shinde has surfaced on and off since then, though Shinde has repeatedly denied any rift between the two leaders.
The Merger Question Still Lingers
This shake-up lands at a sensitive moment for the party. In May 2026, Shinde firmly ruled out any reunification with the Ajit Pawar-led NCP. He called the merger question “entirely closed” after a high-level meeting chaired by Sharad Pawar, one attended by senior leaders Supriya Sule and Jayant Patil.
But the speculation never fully died down. Reports of meetings between leaders from both NCP factions and the BJP have kept merger talk alive in Maharashtra’s political circles ever since, and this sudden reshuffle is likely to feed that speculation further rather than settle it.
A Party With a History of Splits
The NCP-SP’s current turmoil sits within a longer pattern. The original NCP split in 2023, when Ajit Pawar broke away with a large group of MLAs to join the Eknath Shinde-BJP government as deputy chief minister.
Sharad Pawar retained the party’s founding leadership and rebuilt it as NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar), while both factions have spent the years since fighting over the party’s name, symbol and legacy in Maharashtra’s courts and at the ballot box.
The 2024 Assembly result, where the Sharad Pawar faction won just 10 seats against the Ajit Pawar faction’s stronger showing, left the party under pressure to reorganise, a pressure that has shown up repeatedly in leadership reshuffles like this one.
Against that backdrop, an unexplained late-night purge of the entire spokesperson team reads less like an isolated event and more like the latest chapter in a party still trying to find its footing since the 2023 split.
The party’s next move will shape how this episode gets read. A new spokesperson panel, or a clear explanation from the leadership, would calm the speculation quickly.
Silence will only feed it further, especially with merger talk still simmering in the background and the party’s broader rebuilding effort still very much a work in progress.
Curated news reports, in-depth analysis, and special features by India’s Opinion editorial team.
