People pay tribute to Ajit Pawar at Vidya Prathisthan College in Baramati, Pune, on January 28, 2026. | Photo Credit: Emmanual Yogini

Deepak, what is the politics within the Pawar family and within the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)? Sharad Pawar claims there was supposed to be a merger of both factions on February 12th, but that’s now not the case. What’s going to happen?

Deepak Lokhande: We need to understand why NCP was formed and what it has been as a political party. NCP does not claim to have any ideology. They claim to support Ambedkar’s ideology; however, in real life, you will hardly see any of these people either following or practising this philosophy. This has been a party of regional satraps who have been around Sharad Pawar only for the sake of power. This was evident since 1999. These people split from Congress on the issue of Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin, and within 6 months, they immediately joined hands with the same party. They realised they could have a power-sharing agreement with Congress in the Assembly election. Power has been the only mantra that has guided NCP all this while, and that will continue to guide the party.

NCP has been a party of leaders mainly concerned with power, at the local or State level. They don’t bother themselves much about what is happening at the Centre. Their vision is simple: we need to be in power come what may. In 2014, Congress-NCP lost the mandate, but immediately, Sharad Pawar offered outside support to Devendra Fadnavis. He said it was in the interest of the State and the stability of Maharashtra. This has been the ideology for the party all along, and I don’t see why they will change going forward.

What is the realistic scenario about the merger now that Ajit is no more?

Parimal Maya Sudhakar: We have to understand why both factions wanted reunification. For Sharad Pawar, this was necessary because the NCP cannot be there without power. All those who remained with Sharad Pawar did so with the hope he would ensure power for them. In the last Assembly election, the NCP-Sharad Pawar-Uddhav Thackeray-Congress alliance lost badly. Sharad Pawar’s supporters were not comfortable with the idea that for the next five years, they would have to be in opposition. Sharad Pawar realised that power leverage should be given to his supporters, without which they would continue to switch over to Ajit Pawar, the BJP, or any other party in power.

Why was it necessary for Ajit Pawar? If you look at the leaders of Ajit Pawar’s NCP, many are non-Marathas—Praful Patel, Chhagan Bhujbal, Dhananjay Munde. In the long term, Ajit Pawar certainly would like to replace Sharad Pawar as a Maratha strongman in Maharashtra. For that, he realised that unless Sharad Pawar came along with him, his supporters would not come along with him, and he would not be able to get that particular place.

Secondly, Ajit Pawar was looking for some long-term games wherein he had started placing himself as someone who could emerge as a pillar of opposition before or after the next Assembly election in 2029. If the BJP has to expand in Maharashtra, it has to push out one of its alliance partners, either Eknath Shinde or Ajit Pawar. Obviously, Ajit Pawar would be the first one because they consider it an unnatural alliance. Ajit Pawar knew this and was already trying to consolidate his position before 2029.

But now, with his tragic death, this talk of merger has hit a roadblock. Those who are with Ajit Pawar’s party today—Praful Patel, Sunil Tatkare—really do not want to go ahead with this merger because they consider that it would weaken their own position within NCP. They also have to share power with other leaders from Sharad Pawar’s faction. Earlier, they were not comfortable, and now they have put their foot down on these merger talks. I do not see that it is going to happen anytime soon.

Sunetra Pawar assumes charge of the office of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister, in Mumbai on February 20, 2026. | Photo Credit: ANI Video Grab

Deepak, what about Sunetra Pawar? She’s now Deputy Chief Minister, but she doesn’t have the finance portfolio—that was Ajit Pawar’s power base. Now, finance is with Fadnavis. This changes BJP-NCP dynamics. Willthe BJP navigate NCP hereafter?

Deepak Lokhande: There are two aspects we need to look at. Why was NCP looking at a merger? If you look at the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha strength of these two factions, Sharad Pawar had more people at the Centre, and Ajit Pawar barely had one Lok Sabha MP and 2 Rajya Sabha MPs. For the BJP, it was important that these people come together, but they wanted the Pawar family to ensure their understanding is made clear. This was a clear understanding till Ajit Pawar’s untimely death. It was clear that Supriya Sule will be in the centre and Ajit Pawar will be the person taking the party forward in the State.

Now that Ajit Pawar is out of the picture, the natural heir is Sunetra Pawar. However, she doesn’t have the practical political experience. She will not have the finance portfolio with her. That weakens her position. If you see the manoeuvring in the party currently, you will always see leaders like Sunil Tatkare and Chhagan Bhujbal almost piloting Sunetra Pawar everywhere she goes. This has not gone down well within Ajit Pawar’s party, and definitely not with Sharad Pawar’s party.

Sharad Pawar’s party was expecting—and this was quite apparent over the last few months, where Ajit Pawar seemed to be taking complete command of the party, and these people were marginalised. You would not have seen a Sunil Tatkare or a Chhagan Bhujbal making such moves as they are making now, while Ajit Pawar was there. Now you see these people coming to the fore and taking control of the party. This is certainly not something Sharad Pawar and the people around him wanted or will want to see.

The family bond is there. We have seen that in the aftermath of Ajit Pawar’s death. We have seen Sharad Pawar guiding Parth and Jay soon after the death, making all kinds of conciliatory moves. Now it is interesting to see whether Sunetra Pawar actually understands who her well-wisher really is. It is up to her to choose between people like Sunil Tatkare, Chhagan Bhujbal, and Praful Patel, or people like Sharad Pawar, Rohit Pawar, and Supriya Sule, who, to be honest, did not have great equations with Ajit Pawar himself. Will she be more comfortable with these people or with the outsiders? It’s certainly something that will be interesting to see.

Who is the chief beneficiary of this weakened NCP?

Parimal Maya Sudhakar: The natural beneficiary in the short to medium term is the BJP. The party really does not see any challenge to itself within the saffron alliance or in the political spectrum of Maharashtra. They are now very well placed to manoeuvre NCP within the alliance. This is certainly going to be a benefit to the BJP, but also an opportunity for Congress and the Sharad Pawar faction of NCP to mobilise their own bases and emerge as the opposition forces, but only if they actually want to do it.

Deepak, Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar built the Maratha ecosystem through sugar mills, cooperative dairies, political and local bodies for almost 50 years. What is the future of this Maratha ecosystem?

Deepak Lokhande: I hold a slightly different opinion when people see Sharad Pawar as a Maratha strongman. This is an image that has been built by the English media, who did not have their ear to the ground as far as Maharashtra politics is concerned, especially Delhi journalists who were not Marathi-speaking.

You have to see Sharad Pawar’s politics so far. The biggest setback for Sharad Pawar’s Maratha strongman image was when he insisted on and implemented the renaming of Marathwada University. That’s when Sharad Pawar and the Congress Party lost the support of one whole region, which is Marathwada, dominated by the Maratha caste, which is also the reason why Shiv Sena grew so fast in Marathwada.

If you see the rise of NCP in 1999 when Sharad Pawar split from Congress, what were the power centres? The power centres were mainly in western Maharashtra, which is where the sugar cooperative belt is. And there were regional satraps—Jayant Patil was a regional satrap in his own right. R.R. Patil took his own time to come together. Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil from Solapur holds tremendous power by himself in the Solapur region. Padamsinh Patil has been a staunch and loyal supporter of Sharad Pawar, also a relative. Then there was Vijaykumar Gavit from Khandesh, and Ganesh Naik from Navi Mumbai. These have been regional power satraps who felt they would have a greater say in Maharashtra’s power politics if they aligned with Sharad Pawar. Not all of them came together because Sharad Pawar was seen as a Maratha strongman.

If you look at the recent emergence of this whole Maratha movement for reservation, most of the times the leaders who have been part and parcel of this movement have not been sympathetic to the Pawar family. Their view has been that the Sharad Pawar family has, in fact, damaged the  Maratha cause over the years and has not brought benefits to the Maratha community. I really don’t agree with the view that we should see Sharad Pawar as a Maratha strongman.

This is where Ajit Pawar actually differed from Sharad Pawar. Sharad Pawar was following about 10 to 15 per cent ideological politics. Ajit Pawar had no such qualms. He had only one aim: he wanted his party to be in the centre of power by hook or crook. He was being seen as a leader who could bring justice to the Maratha community. A lot of people were looking at Ajit Pawar as a Maratha leader, but now that he is not there, that Maratha community is not going to automatically come to NCP, either unified or factionalised.

Parimal, who is the beneficiary of Maratha politics? At the helm of BJP State affairs is Devendra Fadnavis, a Brahmin by birth. In the last decade, Maratha leadership from Marathwada and Western Maharashtra developed distance from Fadnavis. Who benefits from this ecosystem?

Parimal Maya Sudhakar: You need to see how Maratha politics has changed in the State. It was overwhelmingly Maratha-dominant politics till the early 1980s, but after that, Maratha votes started to fragment, mainly because of the emergence of Shiv Sena. Shiv Sena emerged particularly in the  Marathwada region on the issue of opposing the renaming of Marathwada University after Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. Marathas started shifting from Congress to Shiv Sena in the Marathwada region, and the fragmentation of Maratha votes started to happen.

When Sharad Pawar broke away from Congress in 1999, there was further fragmentation. A section of Marathas remained with the Congress party, but a significant section also moved with Sharad Pawar, particularly in western Maharashtra. From the beginning of this century, the BJP started to court Maratha leaders wherever possible. Today, we see that in all parties, Maratha leadership is there in Maharashtra. It’s a fragmentation of votes that had already taken place, and that’s one of the reasons why no party is emerging as an overwhelmingly dominant party in Maharashtra.

BJP knows this more than anyone else, and that’s why BJP always considered it important to keep leaders like Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar with them. Even when they built most of their politics against Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar, they had no hesitation in taking Ajit Pawar into their camp, mainly because they knew Maratha votes otherwise would not go in large numbers to the BJP. This equation would continue.

This is not merely with regard to party politics, but also related to realities on the ground. BJP from the mid-1970s, the earlier Jan Sangh and then BJP, built their base in Maharashtra by consolidating OBC votes. That tension on the ground remains, and that is a problem for the BJP. They still cannot bring all Marathas or the majority of Marathas to the BJP because the BJP is a Brahmin-OBC and non-Mahar scheduled caste party. That social contradiction remains, and therefore Maratha votes would remain fragmented, and the BJP would always need having alliance with Maratha leaders and Maratha parties.

Deepak, what happens to rural political economy? Ajit was the only leader who had a deep understanding of rural political economy—mills, dairies, societies—as well as urban political economy like redevelopment projects, DP [Development Plan], FSI [Floor Space Index], TDR [Transferable Development Rights].

Deepak Lokhande: NCP’s real power was the cooperatives in Western Maharashtra, sugar cooperatives and other cooperative societies. What has happened over the years—we’ve seen this ever since the emergence of the first Shiv Sena-BJP alliance government in Maharashtra. Shiv Sena-BJP knew back then that the backbone of Congress’s dominance was this sugar belt. I particularly remember there was a note prepared by a BJP minister on how to break this cooperative movement and bring these people with us. That has been the attempt going on since 1995, which is why the first big cooperative leader that broke away from Congress was Balasaheb Vikhe Patil in Nagpur. Thereafter, we have seen a continuous stream of various leaders from western Maharashtra who have slowly and steadily moved either directly to the BJP or towards the BJP.

Over a period of time, this cooperative movement has been weakened in both senses. One aspect was breaking away from the leader, and the second aspect was defaming the movement altogether, as if the cooperative sector is the only sector that has been the most corrupt one. But if you see, the cooperatives were also the one sector that brought prosperity to the farmers, especially in western Maharashtra. I remember when Vilasrao Deshmukh was Chief Minister, he even once appealed to Vidarbha farmers that they would have to take lessons from the cooperative sector of western Maharashtra and see how they could replicate that in the cotton-growing industry, so they wouldn’t have to depend on the cotton monopoly purchase scheme forever.

Coming back to your question, most of these leaders from the cooperative sectors are hugely dependent on the subsidies, the grants they get from the State and the Centre. They will naturally gravitate towards the BJP. Secondly, they are also extremely scared of the agencies of the State or the Centre. These agencies are now under the control of Amit Shah at the Centre, who is the Minister, and the MOS [Minister of State] is in Pune. These people are very much aware of where the power lies. They will start gradually moving towards the BJP. BJP will be the biggest beneficiary of this political economy.

Workers set up a condolence banner for Ajit Pawar, in Mumbai on January 28, 2026. | Photo Credit: PTI

Parimal, do you think the BJP was already making moves to get into cooperative movements, and now with Ajit Pawar’s death, this process will accelerate? 

Parimal Maya Sudhakar: Yes, Murlidhar Mohol is a first-time Lok Sabha Member, and yet he was made MOS and given charge in the Ministry being held by Amit Shah himself. That was a clear indication they wanted to move into the cooperative sector and have their own influence there. The problem is that, yes, Amit Shah understands the cooperative movement, but I really doubt whether the urbanised leaders of the BJP in Maharashtra really understand the functioning of the cooperatives, particularly agricultural-based cooperatives and handling of those cooperatives. How sensitively they handle it and how much autonomy they give to leaders who emerged out of cooperative movements—that’s why, I mean, always what people criticise Sharad Pawar for, basically, NCP having a party of regional satraps. But this was a political economy Sharad Pawar was handling. He had to give autonomy to regional leaders. Without that, they would not come to him, or without that, even the cooperative sector would not survive.

Given the nature of the BJP to dominate everything, I’m sceptical whether they really would be able to handle the cooperatives sensitively. If they really move in, the net result actually could be the destruction of that entire cooperative sector in Maharashtra. The political repercussions of that, at this point, it will be difficult to speculate on the political repercussions.

Where is Maharashtra politics going from here? What new equations do you see on the horizon?

Deepak Lokhande: Ajit Pawar’s untimely death definitely gives a fillip to Eknath Shinde, for sure. BJP wanted to get rid of one of the partners, either Eknath Shinde’s party or Ajit Pawar’s party. They were actually gravitating towards Ajit Pawar’s party. However, now that Ajit Pawar is gone, they will wait and watch and see how strong the NCP will remain after Ajit Pawar’s death. This decision will not happen overnight. We will see this happening maybe over a period of 2 years, and maybe this decision will be taken closer to the elections, but I certainly see an advantage to Shinde. That is point number one.

Congress should have been in a better position to take advantage of this situation. However, the same issue remains with Congress. They do not have one State leader who is acceptable to all the leaders across the State units. We have seen the results already in Chandrapur, where the local MLA and MP could not get along, and they had to lose the mayorship to the BJP. This infighting within Congress has been ongoing for a long time. And the Central leadership, especially the Gandhi family, for some reason have not been interested in Maharashtra as much as they should have been. As a result, Congress has not been able to strengthen its roots here.

Now that leaves the other party that nobody has been talking about so far, which is Uddhav and Raj Thackeray’s Sena. The problem with both of these leaders is that they are extremely urban leaders; they are extremely Mumbai-Thane leaders. The issue they talk about, the Marathi Asmita, Marathi pride, that works only in these two cities and maybe to an extent in a city like Pune. However, in the rest of Maharashtra, this issue does not gain traction, and these two leaders have not made any effort to move beyond the issues that face Mumbai-Pune. They either lack the understanding or lack the willpower to go beyond these. Therefore, even though the party, as in the duo, comes across as a strong brand to non-Marathi people, the people of Maharashtra don’t really have huge hopes from it.

Can Sunetra Pawar emerge as a strong woman leader of Marathas with the support of the emerging women’s demography in politics?

Parimal Maya Sudhakar: There is an opportunity, no doubt there is an opportunity. This is thanks to the policies brought in by Congress, led by Sharad Pawar in the 1990s. From the early 1990s, in the local bodies of Maharashtra across the State, women’s leadership started to emerge, and the aspirations of women to enter politics, for the first time in society, we could see that part.

There was an opportunity for Supriya Sule for a long period of time, but because of the presence of Ajit dada in NCP, Supriya really could not place herself as someone who would inherit Sharad Pawar’s politics. For a brief period, when Congress-NCP was in power, she started NCP’s youth wing that received overwhelming support in rural Maharashtra. But suddenly, the activities of the NCP’s women’s youth wing were stopped. That’s because Supriya was emerging as a leader through that particular activity, and perhaps Ajit dada really didn’t want that to continue.

But now, Ajit dada not being there, Sunetra Pawar certainly has this particular opportunity. There has been a craving in the state that the state should have female leadership. It depends on how independently Sunetra Pawar functions, and the entire State would be watching her. Yes, that opportunity is there. But saying so, I would also like to say that, particularly, by the middle-class women voters, the aspirational women in the State are currently more inclined towards the BJP, and that would be a challenge for Sunetra Pawar. So it’s not easy, but yes, an opportunity is certainly there.

Deepak, how do you think Sunetra will handle NCP affairs with leaders like Chhagan Bhujbal, Sunil Tatkare, Praful Patel, Jayant Patil? Can she do clever politics like Ajit dada?

Deepak Lokhande: This is very early days to judge and gauge how she will manage all of this. But I believe she will definitely be better than Supriya Sule. There is a reason why I say that. To me, Supriya Sule has always been a Page 3 politician. If you look at Supriya Sule, she doesn’t seem to be grounded in what we call Marathi Mati. She has been a person who is more interested in Delhi politics. She doesn’t speak the language, which is the rural Marathi, the thet Marathi, the gavti Marathi. When you don’t speak that language, when you don’t have that accent, you really do not resonate with women. That is also one of the reasons why the NCP youth wing started with Ghatkopar but could not go beyond a certain point. She always thought she would be in Delhi and Ajit Pawar would be in the State. So she didn’t really bother herself to groom or to get ready for Maharashtra politics.

Contrary to this, Sunetra Pawar comes from a very conservative Marathi family. She understands rural voters well. She will definitely connect with rural women much better than Supriya Sule. However, she has always been in the shadow of Ajit Pawar, never really coming in front of the media all these years, and now she has been forced to. So it will be interesting to see how she manages these leaders who have been manoeuvring. If she keeps these people out, if she emerges out of the shadow of these people, I believe she will be a force to reckon with.

Question from Pradnya Shidore: In the post-Pawar phase, Pune’s district plan was slashed despite higher demands. What does this tell us about new power equations? Are fiscal constraints being deployed as a political instrument? Parimal?

Parimal Maya Sudhakar: The way developmental politics has been taking place in Maharashtra, there is a bypassing of local bodies that is continuously happening. It’s a long tradition in Maharashtra to have a Guardian Minister, and the Guardian Minister is also chair of the District Planning Commission. District Planning Commission and local bodies do not have any concrete constitutional arrangement that District Planning Commission should take inputs from corporations or Zilla Parishad. Therefore, it is the Guardian Minister who becomes the supreme authority for developmental activities in all districts. That’s why the Guardian Minister’s position is so important in the State.

In this context, the Pune Metropolitan Development Authority, which was created by the Fadnavis government, also want to take charge of all developmental activities. It is really not clear who is actually in charge. In this entire context, no one actually talks about how the Budget is required for the development of a region like Pune. Therefore, the State governments are not likely to give much funding from their coffers to the authorities at the district level. This is with or without Ajit dada; this was happening, and this would continue to happen.

Rohit Pawar at a press conference raising questions related to his uncle Ajit Pawar’s death in a plane crash, in Mumbai on February 10, 2026. | Photo Credit: Emmanual Yogini

Question: Can Rohit Pawar play an important role in connecting local Marathas to the emerging NCP if Sunetra Pawar takes help from him and Jayant Patil, as her own sons probably do not have contact with the rural economy? Deepak?

Deepak Lokhande: It’s an interesting position that Rohit Pawar has taken ever since the split happened in NCP, even before Ajit Pawar’s death. He made a strategic call. He knew he would not have any stage if he went with Ajit Pawar. His politics would have been finished. He would have been seen as a sideshow or side character. He wanted his presence to be felt, which is why he remained with the opposition.

Now that Ajit Pawar has gone, if you see the posturing he has been making, he has been continuously talking about Ajit Pawar’s death, whether it was an accident or sabotage. He is trying to derive some kind of emotional mileage from there and establish himself as a person who truly was a family person to Ajit dada, but as a matter of principle, he did not go with him. Yes, this is going to be a situation in the near future that he will continue to remain at least a male opponent for Sunetra Pawar’s politics. He will not try to enter women’s voter base, but he will try to get Ajit Pawar’s male fan base.

Parimal Maya Sudhakar: This question is interesting because it brought in Sunetra Pawar’s sons, and rightly pointed out that they do not have contact with the rural economy in Maharashtra. In this context, what role Sunetra Pawar’s sons are going to play—it’s already talked about that one of the sons will go to Delhi in the Rajya Sabha. How much they would like to dominate NCP depends on whether Rohit Pawar really would like to be cosy with Sunetra Pawar’s NCP. It depends on how her own sons and her sons have political ambitions. One of the sons had contested the Lok Sabha election unsuccessfully earlier. Rohit Pawar would also like to see that if they are also in politics, there is no point for him to be close to Sunetra Pawar.

But, saying so, the interests of the war families are intertwined in many of the institutions. That way, they would remain connected. Sharad Pawar—and after Sharad Pawar, Rohit Pawar—would be instrumental in keeping those institutions under the influence of the Pawar family.

Pratik Patel asks: Before 2019, Maharashtra had relatively stable political alignments. After coalition shifts and party realignments, do you see the State’s politics reverting to its earlier structure, or has it permanently changed? Deepak?

I have been thinking about this for a long time. There has been talk, for a long time, about Maharashtra being the bastion of progressive politics, and we talk about the legacy of Shivaji Maharaj, Mahatma Phule, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, and we like to claim ours has been a progressive State for a long time. What we really don’t talk about is the caste discrimination that has taken over over a long period of time. This has also resulted in the culmination of the Maratha Reservation movement, and thereafter, the kind of fractures that have emerged in Maharashtra.

The ideology, per se, got over in 2014 itself, or I would say in 1999 itself. What was the ideology of NCP when it split from Congress? There was no ideology. NCP split based on Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin. Beyond that, there was no ideological difference. BJP and Sena were together on the issue of Hindutva, and yet they split over power sharing. The whole perception that we had that we have been following an ideology-based politics for a long period of time, I personally believe that got over a long time ago. What we have seen thereafter has simply been who will get power and how they will get power. These have been experiments going on in Maharashtra politics ever since 1999, and they have been very aggressive since 2019, and more so after the split of NCP and Shiv Sena. We will see more of it in the future.

A long time ago, we used to laugh at Goa, at how the MLAs move from one party to another. We have overtaken Goa a long time back.

Parimal, we’ve seen the Congress and Vanchit Alliance. For 25 years, secular progressive movements said they should join hands. Recently, we saw what happened in BMC [Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation], in Nanded. Only in Latur city has this alliance clicked. Where are non-BJP voters going from here?

Parimal Maya Sudhakar: The non-BJP voters, that term you have used, is important. There are large number of non-BJP voters in the State. What the non-BJP voters are looking for are credible alternatives. I would like to go back to 1980s. Currently, what is happening in Maharashtra, I would say, particularly with Ajit dada’s death, this is the 1986 moment. What happened in Maharashtra in 1986? Two very important developments happened. Sharad Pawar, who broke away from Congress in 1978, returned to Congress in 1986 and that way the State became oppositionless. Today, the State is opposition-less.

But in 1986, Pramod Mahajan and Bal Thackeray joined hands, and that was the beginning of the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance. But after 1986, it had taken 9 years for the BJP-Shiv Sena to come to power, and that too short of a majority. This is what the people are looking for. Whether Congress and Vanchit can stay together and fight together for 5 years. Whether Uddhav and Raj can stay together and fight together for 5 years. The beginning happened this year, but whether for the next 4 years they stay together and fight, also, that is very important. Consistency in opposition is also important. That’s what the non-BJP voters are looking for.

Pradnya asks: What does this political culture do to voters in Maharashtra? Does it breed cynicism, disengagement, or a new kind of political pragmatism?

Deepak Lokhande: For a long time, we have been talking about the four pillars of democracy—executive, judiciary, administrative, and the fourth pillar, which is not mentioned in the Constitution, the media. But nobody ever spoke about the voters. We took voters for granted from the formation of this country. What has happened over a period of time is that voters who have not been in the picture at all have been seeing every single pillar of democracy getting corroded. All the democratic institutions are corroded. They have been either plagued by corruption or greed.

Now the voter is saying, ‘If my corporator is getting money, if my MLA is getting my money, if my Minister is getting money, if my MP is taking money, why should I not get money?’ Which is why this emergence of schemes like Ladki Bahin, where you are literally bribing voters very officially. Earlier, there used to be political parties giving money overnight, the night before the elections. But now the State government has been given a carte blanche by the Election Commission. You can send money to their account directly, even on the eve of the elections. Now the voter says, if that is going to happen, so be it, then I’ll go with whichever party is giving me money over and above whoever is giving. If nobody is following ideology, why should I be following one?

Over the last year, I believe certain households in Maharashtra have received more than a lakh of rupees, and it’s a lot of money, especially in a rural household, for voting. I think one part of it is that the voters have become practical. They are saying whoever brings me money, I’ll vote for him or her. The second part is also a little bit of disengagement, especially for people like me who have never missed a chance to vote because we believed in some kind of democratic form. But when I see all the institutions are going haywire, then I have lost my faith in democracy, per se. Then will I be participating in this charade, or will I be registering my protest by not participating? That has also become something interesting over the last year or so.

Voters check their names in the voter list as they arrive to cast their vote for Municipal Corporation elections, in Mumbai on January 15, 2026. | Photo Credit: Deepak Salvi/ANI

Pratik Patel asks: In the recent local body elections, AIMIM’s [All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen] seats increased significantly. Will the same trend be seen in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections? Parimal, there seems to be a disconnect between Congress and Muslim, tribal voters, especially non-Mahars, with whom the Congress used to have direct contact.

Parimal Maya Sudhakar: Yes, there is a disconnect. These voters—Muslims, tribal, rural voters—want to have, and they are making overtures to Congress to establish, to reconnect with the Congress Party. The 2024 Lok Sabha election was the best example of it. This is also connected to the last question—it’s not entirely cynical. We are only talking about the State Assembly election results, but just four months before that, the voters in the State had given an opposite verdict. So voters are still in flux; they are still testing. Yes, they are pragmatic. They are not loyal to one particular political party. And I think in a democracy that should be the case. Why should voters always be loyal to a particular political party?

As far as the AIMIM question is concerned, you are absolutely right that the party does well in local bodies, but in the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, it fails to do so. That’s mainly because of the nature of constituencies. In local bodies, the constituencies are very small, and there are constituencies where the overwhelming voters are Muslims. In many constituencies in local bodies where AIMIM has emerged victorious, they have defeated the Muslim candidate only. It’s not that they have defeated non-Muslims also. In the Assembly and Lok Sabha, the constituencies are larger, and therefore, based only on Muslim voters, AIMIM cannot emerge victorious.

However, saying so, the Muslim voters would not remain loyal to Congress if Congress remains non-functional and non-performative. They certainly would like to explore various other choices, including that of Eknath Shinde and the NCP.