Trouble started brewing when the two parties declined rapidly from partners in a tenuous alliance to aggressive competitors, each vying to expand its sway in the state, at the other’s expense.

At the centre of this drama is Congress man and state Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who has been wielding a fist of iron over the NCP for a year now. In fact, he is arguably the first Congress CM who refused to toe the NCP’s line, like his predecessors had been all to glad to do. In the past, Congress CMs have gone beyond the pale to humour their NCP allies, even allowing them to dictate terms about timings and locations of meetings. All that changed when Chavan took the CM’s seat.