The Rise of NCP and TMC in Indian Politics

India’s political landscape is rarely defined by national parties alone. Some of the most powerful players are regional parties that began as breakaway factions and grew into forces capable of shaping governments at both the state and national levels. Two of the clearest examples are the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC). Both were born out of dissent within the Indian National Congress, both built commanding strongholds in a single state, and both became important partners in national coalitions. Their journeys reveal how regional ambition, charismatic leadership, and coalition politics have reshaped Indian democracy.

How the NCP was born 🔗

The Nationalist Congress Party was founded on 10 June 1999. Its origins lie in a sharp disagreement inside the Congress over leadership. After the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won power in 1998, Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, emerged as the natural choice to lead the Congress.

Three senior leaders objected. Sharad Pawar, a former Chief Minister of Maharashtra and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, along with former Lok Sabha Speaker P.A. Sangma and Tariq Anwar, argued that anyone who could potentially become Prime Minister of India should be born in the country. The Congress expelled the three leaders for raising this “foreign origin” issue, and they responded by launching the NCP. Pawar became its president, while Sangma and Anwar served as general secretaries.

The irony was immediate. Despite forming the party in opposition to Sonia Gandhi’s leadership, the NCP joined hands with the Congress within months to form a coalition government in Maharashtra after the 1999 state elections produced no clear majority. The “foreigner” issue rarely featured in any of the party’s later election manifestos.

Building a Maharashtra stronghold 🔗

The NCP’s real strength was always rooted in Maharashtra, particularly in the sugar-belt cooperatives and rural networks of western Maharashtra. In its first electoral test, the 1999 Maharashtra assembly election, the party finished third, winning 58 seats. From 1999 to 2014, the Congress-NCP alliance, known as the Democratic Front, governed the state. Sharad Pawar built the party around his own towering reputation as a Maratha strongman and a master of coalition arithmetic.

The making of the Trinamool Congress 🔗

The All India Trinamool Congress followed a strikingly similar path, but a year earlier and in a different corner of the country. It was established on 1 January 1998 by Mamata Banerjee, who broke away from the Congress because she felt the party did not adequately represent the interests of West Bengal. The word “trinamool” literally means grassroots, and the party’s symbol, two flowers on a single stem rising from blades of grass, was sketched by Banerjee herself to represent the common people and Hindu-Muslim unity.

The TMC’s founding mission was to challenge the long-entrenched Left Front government, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which had ruled West Bengal for decades. From the start, the party stood on the principles of secularism and social justice, and it quickly became the main opposition to the Left in the state.

The land movements that changed everything 🔗

The TMC’s rise was powered by two protest movements over land acquisition. In Singur, the Left government had acquired farmland for a Tata Motors plant to build the Nano car. In Nandigram, plans for a chemical plant threatened to displace thousands of residents. Banerjee placed herself at the front of both struggles, including a 26-day hunger strike. In March 2007, police fired on protesters in Nandigram, killing 14 and injuring many more. The movements succeeded: Tata relocated the Nano project to Gujarat, and the chemical plant plan was scrapped.

These campaigns turned Banerjee into the face of resistance against the Left. The momentum culminated in the 2011 assembly election, when the TMC ended 34 years of Left Front rule and Banerjee became West Bengal’s first woman Chief Minister.

Coalition politics and national reach 🔗

Both parties learned early that survival in Indian politics often depends on alliances. Their coalition histories, however, took different shapes.

The NCP and the UPA 🔗

After contesting the 1999 elections separately, the NCP allied with the Congress to govern Maharashtra. In 2004, it joined the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) at the national level. Sharad Pawar served as Union Agriculture Minister for ten years in the government led by Manmohan Singh. For most of its existence, the NCP positioned itself as a reliable coalition partner of the Congress, both in Delhi and in Mumbai.

The TMC’s shifting alliances 🔗

The TMC’s coalition record was more unpredictable. The party made its Lok Sabha debut in 1998, winning seven seats, and initially joined the BJP-led NDA. Banerjee served as Railway Minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government. She left the NDA in 2001 over a corruption controversy, returned later, and eventually moved closer to the Congress. The TMC even joined the UPA at the centre before pulling out in 2012 over policy disagreements. This willingness to switch sides reflected Banerjee’s consistent priority: protecting and advancing the interests of West Bengal above any fixed national alignment.

By 2016, the TMC had earned national party status from the Election Commission, becoming one of only a handful of parties to do so, on the strength of its vote share across multiple states.

Splits, setbacks, and the recent reckoning 🔗

The most dramatic chapters for both parties came recently, and they show how fragile even dominant regional outfits can be.

The NCP’s vertical split 🔗

In July 2023, the NCP split vertically. Ajit Pawar, Sharad Pawar’s nephew, broke away with a large group of legislators and joined the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance government in Maharashtra, taking oath as Deputy Chief Minister. A bitter legal battle followed over the party’s name and symbol. In February 2024, the Election Commission awarded the NCP name and symbol to Ajit Pawar’s faction, while the group led by Sharad Pawar became known as the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar), or NCP (SP).

The 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections confirmed the new balance of power. Ajit Pawar’s NCP won 41 of 288 seats, while the NCP (SP) managed just 10. Reflecting on the split, Sharad Pawar later said he had never expected the party he co-founded to fracture. The episode underscored how a party built largely around a single leader can fragment when succession and ambition collide.

The TMC’s 2026 defeat 🔗

The TMC faced its own reckoning. After ruling West Bengal for three consecutive terms, the party suffered a landslide loss in the 2026 West Bengal assembly election. The BJP, led in the state by Suvendu Adhikari, a former TMC heavyweight who had defected in 2020, won a historic victory and ended the TMC’s rule. Adhikari defeated Banerjee herself in the Bhabanipur constituency and became Chief Minister.

The defeat closed a long era. Banerjee had served as Chief Minister from 2011 to 2026, the first woman to hold the office in the state. Yet the TMC remains a significant force, having recently been among the larger opposition parties in Parliament.

What their journeys reveal about Indian politics 🔗

The parallel stories of the NCP and TMC offer several lessons about how regional parties function in India.

Charismatic leadership is both strength and weakness. Sharad Pawar and Mamata Banerjee each built their parties around their personal authority. This gave the parties identity and energy, but it also made them vulnerable. The NCP’s split showed how dependence on one leader can leave a party exposed during succession struggles, while the TMC’s fortunes have always been tied closely to Banerjee’s standing.

Regional strongholds anchor national bargaining power. The NCP’s grip on Maharashtra and the TMC’s dominance in West Bengal gave both parties leverage far beyond their numbers. Control of a major state means a bloc of MPs, and that bloc becomes valuable currency in coalition negotiations in Delhi.

Pragmatism shapes alliances. Both parties shifted between alliances when it suited their interests. The NCP opposed Sonia Gandhi’s leadership yet partnered with the Congress for years. The TMC moved between the NDA, the UPA, and independence with remarkable flexibility. In India’s fragmented party system, ideological purity often gives way to practical calculation.

Two parties, one larger pattern 🔗

The NCP and TMC are not isolated cases. They represent a broader trend in Indian democracy in which regional parties, often born from splits within the Congress, have become decisive players. They have governed states, joined and exited national coalitions, and influenced the formation of governments at the centre. Their recent struggles, the NCP’s split and the TMC’s electoral defeat, also remind us that political dominance is never permanent. Power in India’s federal system is constantly contested, and even the most formidable regional parties must keep adapting to survive.

What do you think? Do strong regional parties strengthen Indian democracy by giving states a powerful voice, or do they make national governance more unstable by fragmenting the party system? And when a party is built almost entirely around one leader, what does that mean for its long-term survival?

References

1. https://www.deccanherald.com/india/maharashtra/tumultuous-quarter-century-for-ncp-and-ncp-sp-3572281
2. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nationalist-Congress-Party
3. https://en.bharatpedia.org/wiki/Nationalist_Congress_Party
4. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Trinamool-Congress
5. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Suvendu-Adhikari
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Nationalist_Congress_Party_split
7. https://www.deccanherald.com/india/maharashtra/never-thought-ncp-would-split-appreciate-workers-for-taking-it-ahead-despite-challenges-sharad-pawar-3579031
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamata_Banerjee