Sunetra Pawar vs the old guard: Why NCP is drifting deeper into a crisis

NCP state chief Sunil Tatkare and Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar. (Source: Express Archives)

6 min readMumbaiJul 16, 2026 02:46 PM IST

First published on: Jul 16, 2026 at 02:11 PM IST

All is not well in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), it seems.

A meeting between Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar and the party’s state chief Sunil Tatkare on Wednesday ended on a sour note, with the former questioning why she wasn’t informed in advance about Tatkare and senior leader Praful Patel’s late-night meeting with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday.

On Tuesday night, Opposition NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) leader Jayant Patil visited Fadnavis at his official residence, Varsha, in Mumbai. The meeting came amid speculation that his party might extend a helping hand to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for the Delimitation Bill in Parliament and might even switch sides to join the government. Both Tatkare and Patel, the NCP working president, were at the meeting at Varsha. This fuelled talk of a possible reconciliation between the two NCPs, which had split in 2023 when the late Ajit Pawar joined the NDA.

Sources said that at the meeting on Wednesday morning the Deputy CM expressed her unhappiness at being kept out of the loop about the meeting at the CM’s home. Tatkare told Sunetra, the NCP’s national president, that he and Patel met Fadnavis after coming to know that the NCP(SP) might support the Delimitation Bill. They wanted to ensure there was no miscommunication between the CM and their party, Tatkare is learnt to have told Sunetra. “She asked why neither of the two thought it was important to let her know in advance about it,” a source said.

However, Tatkare denied reports of a rift. “I had a very good equation with Ajit dada (the late Ajit Pawar) and I share the same with Sunetra vahini (sister-in-law). There is no question of miscommunication or her being upset with me for anything,” he said.

A party divided

The NCP increasingly looks fractured, with one group clinging on to the Pawars — Sunetra and her sons — because they are the ones at the helm and in power and the other feeling sidelined following the emergence of Parth Pawar, the Deputy CM’s elder son. Sources close to Sunetra Pawar have hinted that Parth is looking to replace Tatkare with one of the MLAs from north Maharashtra, while Tatkare has openly maintained that he will continue to head the party in the state.

The party has also decided it will not respond to the legal notice from its national secretary Sachchidanand Singh challenging Sunetra’s appointment as NCP national president. “It is unnecessary to even respond to it. If there is any malafide intention behind sending this notice, let that be out in the open after we decide not to respond to it,” said a source close to the Pawars.

The infighting and lack of communication in the NCP have left the organisation hamstrung, with several key appointments kept on hold. The party does not have presidents for the youth and women’s wings. It has also failed to appoint a new chairperson for the state Women’s Commission following the resignation of Rupali Chakankar. The finance portfolio that it had been assured of also appears to be out of reach at the moment, with no developments on that front. Ajit Pawar used to hold the portfolio, but after his death the department’s responsibility was taken up by Fadnavis.

Murmurs among the MLAs also indicate that the merger of the two NCPs could energise the party, but no one has officially raised the matter with the leadership. Sources informed that unless the Pawar family reaches a consensus on the leadership issue, things are unlikely to move forward. Several members of the next generation of the Pawar family — Parth, Jay (Sunetra’s younger son), Rohit (son of Ajit Pawar’s cousin Rajendra), and Yugendra (Ajit Pawar’s nephew) — have entered politics, while Sunetra is the Deputy CM and Supriya Sule is the Baramati MP and a key figure in her father Sharad Pawar’s party.

A party in turbulence

The turbulence in the NCP has been brewing since Ajit Pawar died in an aircraft crash earlier this year. Sunetra has tried to hold on to the organisation along with her sons. However, this has led to friction between her and the senior leadership.

On March 10, 2026, she wrote to the Election Commission asking it to consider any correspondence made by any person on behalf of the party since January 28 (when Ajit Pawar died) null and void. Incidentally, the amended constitution of the party was sent to the EC during that period, on February 16. The amended constitution of the NCP had introduced the post of national working president and extended the rights to run the party at par with the national president, or in his or her absence. At present, Patel holds the post.

The second controversy erupted after Sunetra, in her letter to the EC, omitted the names of Tatkare and Patel from the NCP’s national executive. While she claimed it was a clerical mistake, her detractors saw it as an attempt to sideline the two veterans. Tatkare’s subsequent meeting with Sharad Pawar — ostensibly to enquire about his health — had added grist to the rumour mills. Despite acknowledging the “clerical mistake”, the letter was not withdrawn.

Earlier this week, on July 13, after Sachchidanand Singh issued the legal notice asking that Sunetra’s appointment as NCP national president be declared “illegal, non-existent and void”, Patel called for corrective measures in the way the party was being managed, keeping the tension within the organisation simmering.