 The Congress party enjoyed a near unchallenged dominance of the political landscape until 1995 when the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured an overwhelming majority in the state to form a coalition government.After his second parting from the Congress party in 1999, Sharad Pawar formed the NCP but formed a coalition with the Congress to keep out the BJP-Shivsena combine out of the government for fifteen years until September 2014.Prithviraj Chavan of the Congress party was the last Chief Minister of Maharashtra under the Congress / NCP alliance.