4 min readMumbaiMar 4, 2026 09:18 PM IST
Following days of deliberations and disagreements, Maharashtra’s Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) on Wednesday reached a consensus on its lone Rajya Sabha candidate, deciding to renominate NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar to the Upper House.
The MVA’s announcement came after the Congress high command conveyed its decision of backing Pawar to its state unit chief Harshvardhan Sapkal. NCP (SP) Lok Sabha MP Supriya Sule and MLA Jitendra Awhad visited Gandhi Bhavan in Mumbai in the evening to meet Sapkal, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Vijay Wadettiwar and MLC Satej Patil. A joint press conference was held after the meeting to formally announce Pawar’s candidature.
“It was the Congress’s wish to contest this Rajya Sabha seat. But at the same time, the Congress cares for its allies and has a policy of moving forward together. When the name of a senior leader like Pawar was proposed, it was decided to support him,” Sapkal said.
Sule thanked the Congress leadership for backing her father’s candidature. “He is being discharged from hospital today. We are confident that he will soon begin touring the state. We are making arrangements for him to file his nomination tomorrow,” she said.
March 5 is the last date for filing nominations for the March 16 Rajya Sabha elections.
Sule said that Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut met Pawar at his residence earlier in the day. “All three parties are on board,” she added.
Earlier, Sule held several meetings in Delhi with the Congress leadership to seek support for Pawar’s
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candidature. She, along with senior party leader Jayant Patil, also met Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday evening to seek his support.
In the past, Pawar, 85, had expressed a desire to retire from active politics after the end of his current second term in the Rajya Sabha. However, following the death of his nephew and NCP chief
Ajit Pawar, and with the possibility of a merger between the two NCP factions fading, the NCP (SP) leadership urged him to continue in active politics.
“Pawar’s presence in Delhi is important for the party. He has spent over 60 years in parliamentary politics and we do not want him to step away,” a senior party leader said.
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The announcement of Pawar’s candidature came hours after former minister Jayant Patil said that the possibility of a merger between the two NCP factions was no longer under consideration. “The possibility of a merger between the two NCPs is over. The idea was a brainchild of Ajit Pawar. He was holding talks with both sides. He is no more. The talks have stopped since his death. I do not see them restarting in the future. The merger is no longer on the agenda,” Patil said on Wednesday morning.
The NCP(SP) leader’s statement followed concerns expressed by both the Congress and Sena (UBT) over the possibility of a merger, as they felt that in that event, sending Pawar to the Rajya Sabha would have meant conceding the seventh seat to the ruling Mahayuti or NDA too.
Maharashtra will see polls to seven Rajya Sabha seats that are due to fall vacant. In the current 286-member state Assembly, the MVA is in a position to win only one seat, given that a candidate would need 36 first preference votes for victory. Of the MVA partners, the Congress has 16 MLAs, Sena (UBT) 20, and the NCP(SP) 10. The Mahayuti has enough numbers to win six of them.
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