The coalition between Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has not only been a marriage of convenience, it has also been a somewhat unwilling liaison, given the past record of divorce and marriage. For starters, the NCP was Congress (S) in its previous incarnation. Post-emergency, there was a split in the state Congress when one group led by Y.B. Chavan formed a separate Congress party opposed to the Indira Gandhi-led Congress, known since then as the Congress (I) at the all-India level. From the Chavan group (variously called as Congress-Urs/Congress-Reddy), Sharad Pawar broke away in 1978 with 18 MLAs, formed the Congress (S) and allied with the Janata party and the Peasants’ and Workers’ Party to form a coalition government of the Progressive Democratic Front (PDF). This Congress (S) finally merged with the Congress (I) in 1986. The relationship between the Pawar faction and the ‘loyalist’ Congress was never very cordial after this merger. But given his skills and abilities, Pawar became chief minister in 1988 and again in 1990, and soon rose to national prominence in post-Rajiv Congress politics. The rest is (more recent) history — the formation of the NCP in June 1999, ostensibly on the issue of Sonia Gandhi’s place of birth. This party, in formal Election Commission parlance is ‘National’, but its life and soul reside in Maharashtra.

NCP-Congress alliance:

Swiftly adapting to the post-election scenario, the NCP and Congress decided to come together and form a government in the state after the 1999 assembly election that took place along with the Lok Sabha election. In 2004, both parties decided to enter into a pre-election alliance for both the parliamentary election in April-May and the assembly election in October. While this was part of Sonia Gandhi’s larger game plan of building a coalition to bring the Congress back to power, for Pawar, this was a chance to survive in national politics and also facilitate power-sharing for his followers at the state level. This alliance

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