For several years, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) efforts to storm Sharad Pawar’s citadel of Baramati and politically dominate the sugar heartland of western Maharashtra have come unstuck. Barring some successes in 2019, this region has largely remained the preserve of the NCP and the Pawar clan.
However, in using Mr. Sharad Pawar’s nephew, Ajit Pawar and his splinter NCP faction, as the ‘Trojan horse’ to breach the 82-year-old NCP patriarch’s bastion, the BJP sees a fair chance in dominating both Baramati and the crucial sugar belt (Pune, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, Solapur districts) for the first time in Maharashtra’s political history.
The Baramati Lok Sabha seat (in Pune district) has been shorthand for the Pawar clan’s dominance in the State’s politics, being held almost continuously by Mr. Sharad Pawar from 1991 till 2009, and then by his daughter Supriya Sule.
Likewise, the Pawar uncle-nephew duo have bestrode the Baramati Assembly segment like colossi, retaining unchallenged sway for more than 50 years since 1967. While Mr. Sharad Pawar remained the Baramati legislator between 1967 and 1990, Mr. Ajit Pawar has been the unchallenged king of the constituency for a record seven terms since 1991.
With Maharashtra’s political ship buffeted by raging tempests in recent times, the BJP has succeeded in hemming in Mr. Sharad Pawar in Baramati: of the six Assembly seats in the Lok Sabha constituency, the senior Pawar’s faction today holds none.
Sharad Pawar’s ally in the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), the Congress, holds two seats in the Baramati Lok Sabha segment — Bhor (held by three-term MLA Sangram Thopate), and Purandar (Sanjay Jagtap).
The BJP holds the critical Khadakwasla Assembly seat (held by Bhimrao Tapkir), which has the highest number of voters (nearly 4.7 lakh voters) in any segment in the Baramati Lok Sabha constituency, as well as Daund, held by its MLA Rahul Kul. The crucial Indapur Assembly seat is held by Mr. Ajit Pawar’s firm ally Dattareya Bharne, while Baramati is held by Mr. Ajit Pawar himself, now allied with the BJP.
According to local Congress leaders, the present scenario will increase Mr. Sharad Pawar’s dependence on them to ensure Ms. Sule’s victory from Baramati in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
“Today, the Congress in Pune and western Maharashtra does not need the NCP…it is the other way round. Things have indeed come a full circle, given that the undivided NCP under Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar have always subtly tried to finish off the Congress’ existence in Pune district and western Maharashtra,” a Pune Congress leader said, requesting anonymity.
While the BJP may not have won Baramati yet, it has strained every sinew to take it. Ms. Sule won by more than three lakh votes in 2009, but her victory margin has narrowed since then, while the BJP has made significant gains.
In the 2014 General Elections, Ms. Sule endured a scare after Rashtriya Samaj Paksha leader Mahadev Jankar (now a National Democratic Alliance or NDA ally) gave her a stiff fight. She finally managed to win by a slender margin of less than 70,000 votes in a humdinger of a contest.
While Ms. Sule rallied in 2019 to trounce the BJP’s Kanchan Kul by 1.15 lakh votes, the saffron party’s vote share rose in Baramati.
Now, with Mr. Ajit Pawar turning his coat to the BJP, there is speculation that the saffron party might well give his restive son Parth Pawar, a ticket to challenge Ms. Sule from Baramati, thus making the affair a straight family fight between Pawar senior and his nephew.
In the 2019 General Elections, Parth Pawar, the privileged neophyte distinctly uncomfortable in the vernacular, had crashed by more than three lakh votes while contesting the Maval Lok Sabha constituency. He endured further humiliation in 2020 when grand-uncle Sharad Pawar publicly snubbed Mr. Parth Pawar, calling him “immature”.
The coming General Elections will give both Mr. Ajit Pawar and his son to make good of the alleged indignities suffered at the hands of the NCP patriarch.
Much more than Baramati, the induction of Mr. Ajit Pawar, along with top NCP leaders, including Hasan Mushrif, Dilip Walse-Patil, Chhagan Bhujbal and Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar, among others, is likely to increase the BJP’s dominance over Kolhapur, Satara, Nashik and other districts.
When BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis was Chief Minister from 2014-19, his strategy to break the NCP’s stranglehold in the sugar belt and snare its leaders had been to either bail out some whose sugar factories were in economic doldrums or use the threat of an official enquiry. He also exploited the internecine quarrels within the Congress and NCP to the BJP’s gain.
This yielded successes by 2019. In Sangli, Sanjaykaka Patil, a former NCP man, switched allegiances to the BJP as did former Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (RSP) legislator Rahul Kul and ex- NCP MP Dhananjay Mahadik, whose open rivalry with local Congress leader Satej ‘Bunty’ Patil, led him to join the BJP.
Now, with the bulk of elected NCP legislators, especially from western Maharashtra, apparently on Mr. Ajit Pawar’s side, the BJP seems to be in the driver’s seat.
However, analysts say the endgame is far from over as Mr. Sharad Pawar still has some cards up his sleeve.
According to Pune-based analyst Rajendra Pandharpure, the senior Pawar’s grip over grassroots politics manifested through a web of social and educational institutions — the Vasantdada Sugar Institute, the education outfits Rayat Shiskhan Sanstha and the Shri Shivaji Maratha Society to name but a few — remain firm as ever.
“This is something which even Ajit Pawar has still not been able to match, never mind the BJP or the Eknath Shinde group. Given that the sugar cooperative has been the political unit in western Maharashtra around which much of the high politics of the State has revolved, Sharad Pawar still remains the big boss in this sector,” Mr. Pandharpure said.
Another worrying variable for the BJP is the seething resentment between party loyalists and the Shinde-led Shiv Sena leaders on having acquired the mercurial Mr. Ajit Pawar, who is determined his faction should have the plum portfolios as well as the Guardian Minister posts in the sugar belt districts.
With a logjam within the three ruling parties over portfolio allocation, sources say that some existing BJP and Shinde Sena portfolios — particularly Revenue and Agriculture — could be given to the Ajit Pawar faction, much to the chagrin of the other two.
Moreover, despite the magnitude of the split, Mr. Sharad Pawar has remained unruffled, expressing confidence in building a younger leadership to replace those who deserted him, drawing an analogy with the events of 1980, when he found himself politically marooned with barely five MLAs after more than 50 of his party had left him.
