NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) chief Sharad Pawar with AICC in-charge of Maharashtra Ramesh Chennithala, Leader of Opposition in the State assembly Vijay Waddetiwar, newly-elected Congress MP Varsha Gaikwad and other party leaders during a meeting at Pawar’s residence, in Mumbai, on June 7, 2024.
| Photo Credit: PTI
The Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar (NCP-SP) faction will celebrate its 25th foundation day on June 10 with the party chief set to address a press conference in Pune after flag hoisting.
The foundation day comes just after the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections and in the run-up to the the Maharashtra Assembly elections, which is likely to be held in October. Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (SP) put up a dazzling performance by snaring eight of the 10 Lok Sabha seats it had contested on, clocking the best strike rate in Maharashtra.
While Ajit Pawar-led NCP is planning the foundation day celebrations in Mumbai on Monday, the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) will conduct the festivities in Ahmednagar district.
Mr. Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar led a vertical split in his party and joined hands with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in July 2023 to become Deputy Chief Minister in Maha Yuti government headed by Shiv Sena’s Eknath Shinde.
Mr. Ajit Pawar’s NCP performed poorly in 2024 Lok Sabha polls and won just one of the four Lok Sabha seats it fought, crashing in the high-stakes, fiercely-contested Baramati Lok Sabha seat in Pune district.
The NCP patriarch founded his party in 1999 when he split the Congress over the foreign origin of senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi.