It's do-or-die battle for key satraps Pawar, Shinde, Ajit in Maha polls

Stakes could not be higher for a number of regional heavyweights in Maharashtra as the state goes to the polls on Wednesday in what promises to be a make-or-break election for satraps like Sharad Pawar, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, his predecessor Uddhav Thackeray and deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.

The two Pawars, Shinde and Thackeray are engaged in an intense and riveting battle to seek popular legitimacy for their parties, and which way the voters turn could spell the end of the road for two of them when the results of the election to the 288-member Maharashtra assembly are declared on November 23.

The senior Pawar, who will turn 84 next month, delivered a debilitation blow to his nephew, whose breakaway faction was recognised as the real Nationalist Congress Party by the Election Commission, in the Lok Sabha elections and is looking to strike a knockout punch in the assembly polls, while Ajit Pawar is hoping to bounce back.

The Lok Sabha results, however, gave both Thackeray, who heads Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray after the Shind-led group was recognised as the real Shiv Sena, and the chief minister something to cheer about, rendering the assembly election the air of a final match that could deliver only one winner.

While the Sharad Pawar-led NCP-Sharadchandra Pawar and Thackeray's party are part of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi, which has the Congress as its third important player, the NCP and Shiv Sena are allied with the BJP-led ruling Mahayuti.

How the four regional satraps perform is bound to dictate the politics of the two national parties.

The Bharatiya Janata Party is contesting 149 seats, Shiv Sena 81 seats, and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP has fielded candidates in 59 constituencies.

In the Opposition alliance, the Congress has fielded 101 candidates, Shiv Sena-UBT 95, and the NCP-SP 86.

What has added a sharp edge to the factional fights is the fact that the two claimants of Shiv Sena's popular legacy have squared off against each other in over 50 seats, while the nominees of the two Pawars are up against each other in nearly 37 constituencies.

At the centre of poll sweepstakes involving the two Sena is the question mark over Mumbai ka king kaun, as many of their workers said in a reference to the sway the undivided Shiv Sena had over the country's financial capital and which is now being contested by the two parties.

The uncle-nephew battle is the sharpest in western Maharashtra, a prosperous region where the Pawar clan is rooted.

Sharad Pawar, a four-term former chief minister of the state whose wily moves have shaped the state's politics for decades, has called for the defeat of betrayers, a reference to Ajit Pawar and his nominees.

The nephew, in turn, has refrained from using sharp words against him, wary of stirring popular sympathy for the ageing leader who had handed him a big defeat in the Lok Sabha polls.

The NCP-SP had won eight seats in the Lok Sabha polls against the NCP's one.

The Shiv Sena-UBT had emerged victorious in nine constituencies against the Sena's seven.

The poll season was dominated by conflicting narratives ranging from the opposition's planks of economic distress, farmers's woes, the Centre's "discrimination" against Maharashtra and the BJP's alleged role in breaking up the two regional parties to the ruling alliance touting its welfare schemes, development projects and the Hindutva agenda against what it slammed as the Maha Vikas Aghadi's appeasement politics.

But when the results are declared on Saturday, it will not only announce the popular verdict on the two differing agendas but also seal the fate of some of the most important players in the state's politics.