Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and NCP chief Ajit Pawar will emerge as a key player after the November 20 assembly polls in the state, predicted former minister Nawab Malik on Sunday.

In an interview with PTI over the phone, the NCP candidate from Mumbai’s Mankhurd-Shivajinagar seat said the politics of ideology is over in Maharashtra and nobody knows who will side with which party.

“There are even speculations that NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar and Eknath Shinde, who heads the Shiv Sena, will join hands,” he claimed.

Malik, who was arrested in a money laundering case and is also accused of having links with people close to fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim, is pitted against Samajwadi Party nominee and MVA-backed sitting MLA Abu Azmi and Shiv Sena’s Suresh Patil.

Sena and NCP are partners in the Mahayuti coalition, and leaders from the other constituent, BJP, have declared that they won’t campaign for Malik. The BJP has been a trenchant critic of Malik.

The 65-year-old politician said the assembly polls will be a neck-and-neck contest between the ruling Mahayuti coalition and opposition bloc Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and NCP chief Ajit Pawar will emerge as a key player after the elections.

Of the 288 assembly seats in the state, the undivided NCP had won 54 seats last time.

Ajit Pawar split the Sharad Pawar-founded NCP last year after he and MLAs loyal to him joined Mahayuti. Ajit Pawar subsequently got the party’s name and ‘clock’ symbol. Sharad Pawar now heads the NCP (SP) and is a constituent of MVA, besides Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT).

Malik said he is grateful to the then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar for not seeking his resignation as minister after his arrest in 2022 when MVA was in power.

“I have already said I am grateful to them. I spoke to Uddhav ji over the phone after my release from jail and met Pawar saheb personally,” he told PTI.

Malik said he is with Ajit Pawar as the deputy CM stood by him during difficult times but did not elaborate.

Malik accused his rival and sitting MLA Abu Asim Azmi of being hand in glove with the government. “He voted for them in the legislative council and Rajya Sabha elections. He controls the local administration in the constituency,” he claimed.

In the Lok Sabha elections held earlier this year, the Mahayuti candidate from the Mumbai North seat got only 28,000 votes from the Mankhurd-Shivajinagar assembly segment, he said.

“You can’t win the assembly elections with 28,000 votes. It’s true that Mahayuti has put up a candidate (Sena’s Suresh Patil) there, but I’m not in the fray out of my own will but that of the people. I am confident that I will be elected,” Malik said.

“People of Mankhurd-Shivajinagar want me to end the reign of anti-social elements and drug menace under the current MLA for the last 15 years,” he said.

The NCP leader said he has been on medical bail since July last year until the disposal of his regular bail plea before the Bombay High Court in the money laundering case. “I’ll sue anyone defaming me by accusing me of having links with Dawood Ibrahim,” he said.

As an MVA minister, Malik had repeatedly targeted the Narcotics Control Bureau's (NCB) then the Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede, following the arrest of Aryan Khan, actor Shah Rukh Khan's son, over alleged possession of drugs on board a cruise ship in 2021.

The anti-drug agency later dropped drug charges against Aryan Khan and five others due to lack of sufficient evidence.

The NCP has also nominated Malik’s daughter Sana Malik from the Anushakti Nagar constituency in north Mumbai, a seat which he represented multiple times in the past. The BJP has made it clear that it will not campaign for Nawab Malik, but has no objection to his daughter’s candidature.

Polling for the 288 seats in the Maharashtra assembly will be held on November 20 and votes will be counted on November 23.

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