In a major blow to the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, the party's former Hadapsar MLA Mahadev Babar joined Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Tuesday ahead of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) elections.
Babar was reportedly miffed after he was denied the ticket in the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly polls, and NCP-SP's Prashant Jagtap was given the opportunity to contest from the Hadapsar seat. However, Jagtap lost to NCP's Chetan Tupe.
Babar was elected as an MLA from Hadapsar in 2009. He contested the election again in 2014 but lost to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yogesh Tilekar, largely due to the Modi wave. He started from the grassroots, having been elected as a corporator in 1997 and 2002.
With Babar joining NCP, several Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders from the area, including Nilesh Magar and Yogesh Sasane, are also expected to follow in his footsteps and join Ajit Pawar's party.
Meanwhile, Ajit Pawar is trying to strengthen his party ahead of the municipal polls in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.
Last week, 38 former corporators from various political parties joined the NCP. Prominent among those who joined the party include Ajit Gavhane, who recently contested the Maharashtra Assembly elections from Bhosari as an NCP-SP candidate. Others who joined include former mayor Vaishali Ghodekar, Rahul Bhosale, Sameer Masulkar, and Geeta Mancharkar. Former MLA Vilas Lande, who, like Gavhane, had joined the Sharad Pawar-led faction before the Assembly polls, also returned to the NCP.
