Nationalist Congress Party

The Nationalist Congress Party ( NCP) is one of the state parties in India. The party generally supports Gandhian secularism. It is one of the major political parties in Maharashtra. In July 2023, majority of the elected MLAs and MLCs of the party led by Ajit Pawar joined the National Democratic Alliance government, however, all MPs except two are expected to remain loyal to Sharad Pawar. This caused a direct split between the Ajit Pawar-led NCP Faction and the Founder and President of the party Sharad Pawar. Party formation and performance The NCP was formed on 10 June 1999, by Sharad Pawar, P. A. Sangma, and Tariq Anwar after they were expelled from the Indian National Congress on 20 May 1999, for disputing the right of Italian-born Sonia Gandhi to lead the party. When the NCP formed, the Indian Congress (Socialist) – Sarat Chandra Sinha party merged into the new party. Despite the NCP being founded on opposition to the leadership of Sonia Gandhi, the party joined the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to form the government of Maharashtra in October 1999. In 2004, the party joined the UPA to form the national government led by Manmohan Singh. The NCP's leader, Sharad Pawar served as the Minister of Agriculture for both five-year terms of the Singh-led government. The party remained part of the Congress-led Maharashtra state government until 2014. On 20 June 2012, P. A. Sangma left the NCP to contest the presidential election, which he lost. In the April and May 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the UPA lost to the rival National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by Narendra Modi and the NCP was out of government for the first time in ten years. The NCP broke its alliance with the Congress Party just before the October 2014 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections to contest them on its own. In the assembly election the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged as the largest party and formed a minority government, initially with support from the NCP. In April 2019, voting took place for the 48 Lok Sabha seats from Maharashtra. The Congress and NCP had a seat-sharing arrangement. Similarly, despite their differences, the BJP and Shiv Sena once again contested the elections together under the NDA banner. The election was another landslide victory for the NDA, with the BJP and Shiv Sena winning 23 and 18 seats, respectively, out of the total of the state's 48 Lok Sabha seats.