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BJP wants to do an Amethi in Baramati but doesn’t have a Smriti Irani to defeat Pawar clan

BJP is confident of winning the Maharashtra assembly elections. But its hopes in Baramati are tenuously hanging on ‘outsider’ Gopichand Padalkar.

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Baramati: There is nothing to compare Amethi with Baramati, except for them being the citadels of two political dynasties in India — the Nehru-Gandhi family at the national level and the Pawars in Maharashtra.

Yet, ahead of the 21 October assembly elections, the BJP’s hopes in Baramati are tenuously hanging on the possibility of an Amethi re-do.

“If Smriti Irani can trounce Rahul Gandhi in Amethi, why can’t Gopichand Padalkar (the BJP candidate) do the same to Ajit Pawar in Baramati?” BJP workers in this western Maharashtra constituency ask, though almost in jest.

It’s a crucial battle for the Pawars who have dominated Maharashtra politics for close to five decades. At 79, family patriarch Sharad Pawar is campaigning across the state, except in Baramati, where neither him nor his nephew, former deputy chief minister Ajit, ever campaigns during elections — except for the opening speech on the day of filing the nomination papers and the last speech an hour or two before the end of the poll campaign on the last day.

“They are like a school student who works hard all through the year and takes a break just before the examination, in a show of confidence,” a worker in Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) told ThePrint Tuesday in Baramati.

For the BJP, too, Baramati is crucial. The party is confident of winning the battle in Maharashtra. The Congress seems to have conceded defeat, with senior party leaders confining themselves to their constituencies, hoping to be around for another battle in 2024.

But Sharad Pawar, who will become an octogenarian in December, has remained defiant and the rallying force of resistance against the BJP. So, he — through his regent and nephew Ajit — must be defeated in his own backyard.


Also read: Devendra Fadnavis is so strong in Maharashtra that he is ready to wrestle, but ring is empty


The Baramati stronghold

But Pawars are not Gandhis. Separated by nearly 1,500 km, Amethi — the Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh that has sent Nehru-Gandhi family or its nominee to the Lok Sabha 11 times since 1980 — and Baramati that has sent the Pawar family to the Vidhan Sabha for 52 years since 1967 are a sharp contrast in terms of development.

Under the patronage of the Congress party’s first family, Amethi was the symbol of neglect and apathy. Baramati has been a shining example of what India’s political class is capable of. If closed factories in Amethi were a testimony to the Nehru-Gandhi family’s development vision or the lack of it, Pawars’ Baramati, a mere tehsil, has them all — sugar, textile, dairy, silk, automobile and more.

A large chain of educational institutions — from KG (kindergarten) to PG (post graduation), as Pawars’ Vidya Prathisthan provides, for instance — encapsulates the vision of Maharashtra’s most dominant political family.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Pawar-run Krishi Vigyan Kendra in Baramati in 2015, he spent over two hours there — including an hour, claim NCP leaders, getting his pictures clicked by three photographers on his team, in various poses against different backgrounds.

Tough battle

The BJP is finding it tough to crack the Pawar nut.

Sharad Pawar might have forced the Shiv Sena to form a coalition government with the BJP by showing willingness to play ball following a fractured mandate in 2014, but he continued his efforts to regroup the opposition parties against the BJP at the Centre.

Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP president Amit Shah addressed a rally in Baramati, the Parliamentary constituency from where Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule contested. She went on to win the elections, a hat-trick for her. Her cousin, Parth, Ajit Pawar’s son, however, lost from Maval — the first time anyone in the Pawar family lost an election.

In the upcoming assembly polls, another family member, Rohit, Sharad Pawar’s grand-nephew, is trying his luck from Karjat-Jamkhed constituency, where he will be up against sitting MLA and Water Conservation Minister Ram Shinde.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has already addressed two rallies in that constituency, and Shah is scheduled to address another rally there on the last day of campaigning, indicating how the BJP is putting in its might to humble the Pawar family.


Also read: Drought-free Maharashtra, 1 crore jobs & Bharat Ratna for Savarkar in BJP’s poll manifesto


The caste game

To turn the heat on Ajit Pawar, Devendra Fadnavis is scheduled to address a rally in Baramati Thursday. For the first time, the BJP has opened its office in this constituency. The party is having it tough here, though.

For one, its candidate, Gopichand Padalkar, is an “outsider”. He unsuccessfully contested from Sangli on Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) ticket during the Lok Sabha elections, but garnered 3 lakh votes to prove his hold over Dhangar votes.

Fadnavis brought him back to the BJP fold and fielded him in Baramati where Dhangars constitute over one-fourth of the population, second only to Marathas.

In the BJP’s caste matrix, Padalkar makes a winning combination, with the potential to wean away Dhangar votes to supplement a sizeable section of Marathas who have already shown their willingness to shift their loyalty from the Congress-NCP camp to the BJP in the state.

It seemed like a plausible gambit until the Enforcement Directorate (ED) played spoilsport. The ED’s decision to register a case against Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar in the alleged Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank scam hasn’t gone down well with Marathas, at least in Baramati.

Saheb (Sharad Pawar) is 80 now. He was never a part of that bank. The BJP (government) is still trying to frame him. The party will have to pay for this,” a BJP leader’s driver told ThePrint outside the party office in Baramati Tuesday.

Without even the ED’s ‘help’, the Pawar family looked well-ensconced in Baramati at least.

The BJP may very well go on to win in Maharashtra for the second consecutive term, but it may not have the satisfaction of vanquishing the Pawars on their home turf. Like Smriti Irani in Amethi, Padalkar may have to wait for another election. This may not be a big solace to Sharad Pawar, though.


Also read: Sharad Pawar can’t be caged by ED probe. That’s why he is Modi’s guru, Sonia’s trusted ally


 

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2 COMMENTS

  1. Day dreaming is the bjp and a pipe dream,, a wishful thinking gone too far,, they seem to be counting their chickens before being hatched

  2. NCP will win 14 seats Congress another 15 to 16 seats entire opposition put together will be less than 50/288 seats…it’s one sided contest

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