The party was founded in Maharashtra by Keshavrao Jedhe of Pune, Shankarrao More, Bhausaheb Raut of Mumbai, Nana Patil of Satara, Tulshidas Jadhav of Solapur, Dajiba Desai of Belgaum, Madhavrao Bagal of Kolhapur, P K Bhapkar and Datta Deshmukh of Ahmednagar, Vithalrao Hande and others.

[8][9] A former member of the Legislative Council of Maharashtra,[10] Jayant Prabhakar Patil is general secretary of the party.

The party has played a very important role in Samyukta Maharashtra Movement under the leadership of Bhausaheb Raut, Uddhavrao Patil, Dajiba Desai.

Most important meetings of this movement and coordination took place at the Mumbai -Koliwadi, Girgaum bungalow of Shri Bhausaheb Raut.

In the 2014 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election at age 88, Ganpatrao Deshmukh of the party won the Sangole constituency for record 11th time with 94,374 votes, defeating Shahajibapu Patil of Shiv Sena by 25,224 votes, while the NCP did not field a candidate against him.