Maharashtra Pradesh Mahila Congress Committee

The Maharashtra Pradesh Mahila Congress (M.P.M.C) is the unit of the All India Mahila Congress for the state of Maharashtra. The head office of the organization is situated in Dadar, Mumbai.

History

The state of Maharashtra was formed on 1 May 1960, and since then its politics have been evolving. The INC was long without a major challenger, and enjoyed overwhelming support from the state's sugar co-operatives and thousands of other cooperative organizations involved in the rural agricultural economy of the state such as marketing of dairy and vegetable produce, credit unions etc. Since 1930s when Keshrao Jedhe joined the Congress party, the politics of the Bombay state and its successor Maharashtra state has been dominated by the mainly rural Maratha-Kunbi caste.^[1] This group dominates the cooperative institutions and with the resultant economic power, control politics from the village level up to the Assembly and Lok Sabha seats. Since 1980s, this group has also been active in setting up private educational institutions.^[2] Major past political figures of Congress party from Maharashtra such as Keshavrao Jedhe, Yashwantrao Chavan, Vasantdada Patil, Shankarrao Chavan Keshavrao Sonawane and Vilasrao Deshmukh have been from this group. Sharad Pawar, who had been a towering figure in Maharashtrian and national politics belongs to this group. The state's political status quo was upset when Sharad Pawar defected from the INC, which he perceived as the vehicle of the Gandhi dynasty, to form the Nationalist Congress Party. This followed disputes between Pawar and the INC president Sonia Gandhi. This offshoot of the Congress party split the Maratha community support. In the last thirty years, however, Shiv Sena and the BJP began gaining a foothold in the state of Maharashtra, especially in the urban areas such as Mumbai. Shiv Sena and the BJP came into the power in 1995, which was a big blow to the INC. After one term, however, the Congress-NCP alliance regained power and held it until 2014. The INC contested the 2014 state assembly election without getting in a formal alliance with the NCP and lost power to the BJP.

List of Chief Ministers of Maharashtra from the Congress Party

Performance in State Elections

List of PMCs

See also

• All India Mahila Congress
• Indian National Congress
• Congress Working Committee
• All India Congress Committee
• Pradesh Congress Committee

References