By Kavita Mistry 
Mumbai: Stung by its most embarrassing defeat so far in last year’s Maharashtra assembly poll, the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Tuesday appointed Shashikant Shinde, a loyalist of the party founder, as its new Maharashtra unit president to drive the party’s preparation for the local body polls.
The NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar), as the party is formally known, elected Shinde as Maharashtra state president unanimously in a state party meeting in Mumbai Tuesday.
Shinde replaces Jayant Patil, who was elevated to the post of the state party president in 2018 and had at the party’s foundation day in June publicly asked for him to be relieved of the post.
Speaking to reporters after his appointment, Shinde said he will travel across Maharashtra in the next one month, and meet every cell and unit the party has to strengthen these and induct new people.
“Politics has changed. Earlier one could change the government by exposing the inefficiencies of the government. Now, governments are changed by using power, issuing threats. This will be the first challenge—to make people aware of this new system of politics,” he said.
There is space for Opposition in Maharashtra, if we try to fill it then we will definitely get success,” he added.
Shinde’s appointment comes at a time when local body polls across Panchayat Samitis, Zilla Parishads, municipal councils and corporations are expected to be held across the state this year or early next year. It also comes at a time when the party is at its lowest, having recorded its most humiliating defeat in last year’s assembly polls since it was founded in 1999. The party contested 86 seats and won just 10.
Party sources said that following the dismal performance, there was an internal clamour for a change in leadership. There were also talks of Patil looking for opportunities outside the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, which he put to rest at the party meeting Tuesday.
Patil said, “I am leaving, but not going anywhere. I have taken a step back, but my objective is still clear.”
Once again, a Maratha leader to steer the party
Shinde is a staunch loyalist of Sharad Pawar, just like Jayant Patil, who has also been a close confidante of the octogenarian.
“Shashikant Shinde is a blind follower of Sharad Pawar. He has always obeyed every command of Pawar Saheb without a single question. He is bold and aggressive in his demeanour, which will help in the run up to the local body polls. Jayant Patil was also assertive in his own way. He was soft spoken, but used satire effectively to question opponents,” party leader Vidya Chavan said to ThePrint.
In terms of the caste arithmetic, Shinde is a like-by-like replacement for Patil. Like Patil, Shinde hails from the Maratha community and from the Western Maharashtra region where the party is the most prominent. While Patil hails from the Sangli district, Shinde comes from the neighbouring Satara district.
Shinde, a four-time former MLA and currently an MLC, is a grassroots leader having connections with labour groups, especially with the Mathadi workers (head loaders) community, prominent in Western Maharashtra districts. He has been a former working president of the Maharashtra State Mathadi, Transport and General Kamgar Union and was also a former APMC director.
“Shashikant Shinde is someone who has been around workers, understands their woes, and can take aggressive stands. He has the capacity to actively travel across the state. After the split, he accompanied Pawar Saheb everywhere on all his tours,” Chavan said.
Shinde first became an MLA in 1999 winning the assembly elections from the Javli assembly constituency in the Satara district, and continued to represent it for a second term till 2009, when Javli was abolished during the delimitation exercise.
Shinde then went on to represent the Koregaon assembly segment in Satara from 2009 to 2019. He lost the 2019 assembly election to the undivided Shiv Sena in 2019. Shinde also briefly served as a cabinet minister in Maharashtra from June 2013 to September 2014.
In 2020, Shinde entered the Maharashtra legislative council and has been an MLC since then.
In last year’s Lok Sabha election, party leader Pawar handpicked Shinde to take on Udayanraje Bhosale, a descendant of Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji in the Satara constituency. Bhosale was himself an NCP leader until 2019, when he jumped ship to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the state assembly poll that year.
Shinde, however, lost to Bhosale. Subsequently, he also lost the assembly election that year from the Koregaon constituency to Mahesh Shinde, the same candidate who had trounced Shashikant Shinde in 2019. Mahesh Shinde is now part of the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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