Six senior leaders of the Nationalist Congress Party met Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday night, November 1, 2026, and told him they were unhappy with how the party is being run, according to sources familiar with the closed-door meeting.

The leaders were Praful Patel, Sunil Tatkare, Chhagan Bhujbal, Dhananjay Munde, Hasan Mushrif and Dilip Walse Patil. They had been given an appointment to meet Shah without Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar, who is the party’s national president, and without her son, Parth Pawar.

The message from the meeting was pointed. A source who attended the discussion said the grievance was about the way the party is being run, which they described as authoritarian and damaging to the NCP’s strength. Another source said Shah was already aware of the problems, and the message to the leaders was clear.

Mend your ways, improve your party. That is what was hinted to the delegation, one of the sources said.

The sources were equally firm on one point. There was no discussion of a merger with the Nationalist Congress Party–Sharadchandra Pawar, known as NCP-SP. One NCP source said a merger with NCP-SP is not in the picture and that the delimitation Bill debate is behind the party. The meeting with Shah, the source insisted, was specifically about problems inside the NCP.

The internal tension spilled into the party’s core committee meeting on Monday evening, November 2, 2026. The meeting was held at Sunetra Pawar’s residence and lasted three hours. Sources said committee members did not hold back while voicing their disagreements.

Most of the six leaders who met Shah are veterans with years of experience as ministers and strong popular support. Two of them had recently called for introspection after the party’s poor showing in the Legislative Council elections. In those polls, the NCP lost to NCP-SP, which won two seats, while the NCP did not win a single one.

The Parth Pawar question

The roots of the discontent run back to the sudden death of Ajit Pawar, the NCP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister, in a helicopter crash earlier this year. After his death, his son Parth Pawar, a political novice, unofficially took over the reins of the party. That move has caused resentment and bad blood within the organisation.

Senior leaders have criticised his style of functioning as authoritarian. Their complaint is not only about his approach but also about exclusion. Sources say senior leaders have been kept out of all key decisions in the party.

A senior NCP leader spoke in unusually blunt terms. If they do not change their way of functioning, the senior party leaders are considering charting their own way. The leader said the group has few options given the unilateral decisions being taken, and that none of the senior leaders were consulted on any important decision.

“If they (Parth Pawar and Sunetra Pawar) don’t change their way of functioning, the senior party leaders are considering charting their own way. They are not left with much of a choice.”

The BJP’s position

The BJP leads the ruling alliance in Maharashtra, and the NCP is part of it. Sources in the BJP had earlier indicated they wanted the NCP and NCP-SP to merge, and also wanted the two family factions to unite. On Monday, BJP leaders said they would not leave Sunetra Pawar’s side.

A senior BJP leader pinpointed the source of the trouble. The primary contention, the leader said, is against Parth Pawar, against his style of functioning and his way of taking decisions.

The party’s public response

Sunil Tatkare, who was among the six leaders who met Shah and who also serves as the NCP’s Maharashtra state president, addressed reporters after the core committee meeting. He denied reports of differences within the party. Yet his remarks carried a note of disgruntlement.

Tatkare said the leaders had worked under Sharad Pawar and later under Ajit Pawar, and had followed a particular working style and organisational structure. They had believed in collective leadership and a process for taking decisions, he said. Now, he added, the party is looking at how to strengthen itself under Sunetra Pawar’s leadership.

The NCP’s national spokesperson, Umesh Patil, dismissed the reporting on internal rifts as mischievous. He said Sunetra Pawar had herself told Shah that a delegation of senior party leaders would be meeting him. Sunetra and Parth Pawar had met Shah a few days earlier.

The party has now called a meeting of all its elected representatives on Tuesday, November 3, 2026. The agenda is to discuss the issues that party leaders and cadres should focus on. Whether that session can paper over a rift that has been building since Ajit Pawar’s death is the question now hanging over the NCP.

The Legislative Council results are the backdrop to all of this. Those losses prompted some leaders to call for soul-searching, and they now frame the latest political moves in Maharashtra. For a party that has been reshaped by grief and a sudden leadership shift, the next few days will show whether the revolt stays a closed-door grievance or becomes an open split.