Cracks have emerged within the ruling Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra just days before the Pune Teachers' Constituency election, after Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde announced Shiv Sena's formal support for Independent candidate Sachin Sanap — directly contradicting Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis's earlier assertion that the coalition would contest all five Teacher and Graduate constituencies on a unified ticket. Voting is scheduled for 23 October, with counting on 27 October.

Shinde's Move and What He Said

On Thursday evening, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde publicly declared Shiv Sena's backing for Sachin Sanap. 'Although we are contesting elections as Mahayuti, a "friendly contest" may take place in certain places as an exception,' Shinde stated. The remark effectively formalised a split within the alliance on the Pune seat, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded Kaustubh Gawade as its official candidate.

This puts the two senior Mahayuti partners — Shiv Sena and BJP — in direct opposition in the constituency, despite CM Fadnavis having previously stated that Shiv Sena would work to ensure Gawade's success and that the party had no role in supporting Sanap.

The Crowded Contest in Pune

The Pune Teachers' Legislative Council (MLC) seat is now shaping up into a multi-cornered fight. Jayant Asgaonkar of the Indian National Congress (Congress) enters the race again as the incumbent, backed by the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA). Asgaonkar had secured a decisive victory on first-preference votes in the 2020 elections, held under the then-MVA government, making him the candidate to beat.

Former MLA Dattatray Sawant, who had campaigned for the BJP ticket — symbolically launching his bid from the courtyard of Pandharpur's Vitthal Temple — was ultimately denied the official nomination. He is now contesting as an independent, having finished a strong second in the previous cycle. Shiv Sena, meanwhile, is deploying its full organisational machinery to back Sanap, with senior party leaders set to begin ground-level campaigning.

Alliance Friction Beyond Pune

The Pune divergence is not an isolated episode. Political analysts note that underlying frictions within the Mahayuti coalition have surfaced across multiple MLC segments. BJP rebels have complicated local equations in Amravati, and reports of tactical cross-support between coalition partners have also emerged from the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Amravati belts. To contain the fallout, senior leaders including Chandrashekhar Bawankule and Minister Uday Samant rushed to the Amravati division to manage local dissent.

Notably, this is the second time in recent months that Mahayuti's internal coordination has been tested in a sub-state electoral context — a pattern that critics argue reflects the structural strain of maintaining a three-party coalition across Maharashtra's diverse regional equations.

What the Coalition's Managers Are Saying

Minister Shambhuraj Desai moved to downplay the discord, clarifying that the ruling alliance intends to uphold coalition ethics. He maintained that every political outfit holds the democratic right to expand its organisational footprint, and argued that there is no active discord within the coalition. However, Shiv Sena's formal endorsement of Sanap stands in direct contradiction to the official Mahayuti position articulated by Fadnavis.

What's Next

With voting on 23 October and the BJP, Shiv Sena-backed Independent, MVA's incumbent, and a rebel former MLA all in the race, the Pune Teachers' seat has become an unintended referendum on Mahayuti's internal discipline. The result could harden or soften internal bargaining dynamics within the coalition ahead of future state-level contests.