As Maharashtra goes to the polls on Tuesday with the ruling Congress-NCP alliance hoping for a third straight term despite failing to deliver on several fronts, there are two factors that are new: the boundaries of the constituencies have changed after delimitation and there are new players in the fray — the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and the Republican Left Democratic Front (RLDF).

In the 2004 Assembly polls, the NCP had emerged as the single largest party, winning 71 seats, followed by the Congress with 68 seats. A year later, Narayan Rane rebelled in the Shiv Sena and joined the Congress after being sacked. He engineered the defections of Sena MLAs, who got re-elected in bypolls to increase the strength of the Congress to 75, making it the single largest party in the Assembly.

The Congress and the NCP are allies and have been ruling the state for the past 10 years, but they are also rivals fighting for the same vote-banks. The recent Lok Sabha polls revealed fissures in the alliance as the NCP projected its chief, Sharad Pawar, as the prime ministerial candidate, hobnobbed with parties like the Sena and gave an impression that it may ditch the Congress. However, the Congress won 17 out of the 48 Lok Sabha seats due to the presence of the MNS in the fray.

The MNS spoiled the poll prospects of the Sena-BJP, thereby facilitating the victory of at least seven Congress candidates. Consequently, the Congress humiliated the NCP as its leaders started talking of the NCP merging with the Congress or the party going solo in the Maharashtra Assembly polls. Ultimately, the alliance was forged, with the Congress increasing its share of seats from 166 in 2004 to 173 in 2009, while the NCP’s share was reduced from 122 to 114. The NCP is actually contesting 113 seats as there is no candidate in Ulhasnagar.

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