In 38 of the 52 Maharashtra Assembly seats that the Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) is contesting as part of the ruling Mahayuti alliance, the party is in a fight against the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP).

At 20, most of the contests between the parties led by the uncle-nephew duo are concentrated in Western Maharashtra. While the NCP has fielded most of its sitting MLAs, the NCP (SP) has relied mostly on newcomers.

One of the most significant battles will be in the Pawar family’s traditional stronghold of Baramati, where Ajit’s challenger will be his nephew Yugendra Pawar, contesting on an NCP (SP) ticket. Yugendra, son of Ajit’s brother Shrinivas, is the Pawar family’s third generation to enter politics and was involved in his father’s business before the NCP (SP) handed him his poll debut. Ajit has been winning the Baramati seat in consecutive polls since 1991.

Another significant battle will be in the neighbouring Indapur constituency, where Ajit’s trusted aide Dattatray Bharne will take on seasoned politician and former minister Harshvardhan Patil from the Sharad faction. Patil, a four-time Indapur MLA, had joined the party ahead of these elections after he was denied a ticket by the BJP. After defeating Patil in 2014, Bharne became a two-time Indapur MLA in 2019.

In Tasgaon-Kavathe Mahankal, former state Cabinet minister R R Patil’s son Rohit will be making his electoral debut as the NCP (SP) candidate against former MP Sanjaykaka Patil, who moved from the BJP to ally Ajit’s NCP to get a ticket for these polls. Ajit’s old rivalry with the late R R Patil, who he accuses of “backstabbing” him by ordering an Anti-Corruption Bureau probe over an alleged Rs 70,000-crore irrigation scam during Patil’s tenure as the state Home minister, adds another dimension to this contest.

Three of the NCP-versus-NCP fights are located in the Nashik district. The contest between OBC leader and state Cabinet minister Chhagan Bhujbal and the NCP (SP)’s Maratha leader Manikrao Shinde in the Yeola constituency will be keenly watched, particularly given the Maratha-OBC polarisation in the state stemming from the ongoing reservation agitation.

In the state’s remaining regions, from the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and the Konkan belt in the west to the central Marathwada to the eastern Vidarbha, there are just five seats where the two NCP factions will face-off. While the NCP’s Agriculture minister Dhananjay Munde will take on NCP (SP) newcomer Rajesaheb Deshmukh in Marathwada’s Parli seat, Vidarbha’s Morshi seat will see Independent MLA-turned-NCP candidate Devendra Bhuyar contest against the NCP (SP)’s Girish Rangrao Karale.

In Mumbai, two debutants are in the fray from Anushakti Nagar. While Ajit’s NCP has fielded Sana Malik, daughter of controversial sitting two-time MLA Nawab Malik who has often been targeted by the BJP for his alleged ties to Dawood Ibrahim, Sharad Pawar has fielded the Samajwadi Party’s Fahad Ahmad, a former youth leader and husband of actress Swara Bhasker, on an NCP (SP) ticket. The contest here is somewhat a proxy battle between associates-turned-rivals and two heavyweights of the Maharashtra Muslim community: SP Maharashtra chief Abu Asim Azmi and former Cabinet minister Nawab Malik.

Since the split in the NCP in 2023, it’s been a rocky road for both Sharad and Ajit Pawar. Five years ago, Sharad managed to outmanoeuvre the BJP and then moulded the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), bringing the ideologically disparate Shiv Sena and Congress together to form a government after the 2019 Assembly polls. But after the Sena split toppled the MVA government, and Ajit’s rebellion fractured the NCP, Sharad has rebuilt his party and worked on consolidating his base in Western Maharashtra and Marathwada.

This election, the first since he emerged from Sharad Pawar’s shadow, will be a major test of Ajit’s leadership skills. Despite his upper hand when he broke ranks with Sharad, Ajit has failed to press his advantage – not only did his party win just one of the four Lok Sabha seats it contested earlier this year, but it also got only 52 seats in the seat-sharing deal with its Mahayuti partners. Ajit, though saddled with problems of his own, is not quite diminished yet and will provide his uncle with a tough challenge in the sugar belt of Western Maharashtra that has seen a degree of shift in recent weeks.