Pune: In a significant political development, NCP-SP legislator Rohit Pawar on Monday announced that the two rival factions of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) will contest the upcoming Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal elections together.

The local-level understanding marks a departure from the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, in which the two factions had contested against each other.

Rohit Pawar’s announcement came a day after NCP chief and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, during a campaign rally, said that his faction and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP would jointly contest the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) elections.