Still smarting under the setback it received during the last Lok Sabha elections, NCP is now confronted with an adverse factor in the ensuing Maharashtra Assembly polls with noted social worker Anna Hazare opening a front against Sharad Pawar's party accusing it of corruption.
Hazare, who has earned the reputation of being an "anti-corruption crusader" who also campaigned for Right to Information Bill, is currently fasting to protest lack of action on part of the state government against three tainted erstwhile NCP Minsters found guilty by a commission in 2006.
Hazare is on an indefinite fast at Ralegaon-Siddhi village in neighbouring Ahmednagar district since October 2.
What has irked NCP leadership is the direct attack by Hazare on party president Sharad Pawar whom he has accused of shielding those involved in corruption, naming the case of party MP Padmasinh Patil, now facing a CBI probe for allegedly eliminating a political rival -- Pawanraje Nimbalkar.
And the embarrassment NCP is facing became clear when Ajit Pawar, Maharashtra Minister and nephew of Sharad Pawar, publicly flayed Hazare for his "an anti-NCP stance".
"Anna Hazare has adopted an anti-NCP stance and his allegations against NCP president will not hold water because people of Maharashtra know Sharad Pawar, who has been the state chief minister for four times, too well to allow his image to get tarnished," he said.
Hazare's public support to a group of 12 Assembly poll candidates, which includes Om Raje Nimbalkar, son of the slain Pawanraje in Osmanabad, has also generated political heat in the state, with Ajit questioning their credentials.
In an interaction with media here yesterday, Ajit accused the septuagenarian social worker of "harbouring personal malice" against the NCP President and being "unjust" to the party.
But Hazare, who has many fasts to his credit to expose corruption in government, is unfazed.
In a series of public attacks on Pawar and NCP since the declaration of the Assembly elections, Hazare has alleged that Sharad Pawar was against him because he had unearthed corruption cases involving close aides of the NCP President.
Locked in an electoral battle with political opponents -- Shiv Sena, BJP and MNS -- the NCP is clearly rattled by the public condemnation of the party by a social worker of Hazare's stature.
The one man Justice P B Sawant Commission, set up by the State Government, had found three ministers -- Padmasinh Patil, Nawab Malik, and Suresh Jain -- guilty of corruption in its report submitted in 2006.
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