Pune: In a significant setback for Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT), Mahadev Babar, a former MLA from Hadapsar, officially joined Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Tuesday, intensifying political shifts ahead of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) elections.
Babar’s decision to switch parties came after he was overlooked for a ticket by Shiv Sena (UBT) in the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections. NCP-SP’s Prashant Jagtap had been chosen for the Hadapsar seat, but ultimately lost to NCP’s Chetan Tupe. Babar had first won the Hadapsar seat in 2009, then lost in 2014 to the BJP’s Yogesh Tilekar amid a strong Modi wave. Rising through the ranks, Babar began his political career as a corporator, winning elections in 1997 and 2002.
With his induction into Ajit Pawar’s NCP, several Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders from the region, including Nilesh Magar and Yogesh Sasane, may follow suit and switch allegiances as well.
This wave of defections follows the recent induction of 38 former corporators from various parties into NCP last week. Among them were Ajit Gavhane, who had contested the Bhosari Assembly seat as an NCP-SP candidate; former Pune mayor Vaishali Ghodekar; Rahul Bhosale; Sameer Masulkar; and Geeta Mancharkar. Even former MLA Vilas Lande, who had previously joined the Sharad Pawar faction before the Assembly polls, has now returned to Ajit Pawar’s camp.
